Just One Day
by Asano
Summary: It takes just one day for the Doctor to realize just how much the universe can unravel, and just what lengths he's willing to go to in order to save it and the people he loves. TenRose and a surprise.
1. Chapter 1

It had only been a day for him. That was all, just one day. One lousy, crappy day banging around the empty TARDIS, pretending that he didn't miss the sound of her voice as terribly as he did.

When he couldn't find the sugar for his tea, he realized that only Rose knew where it was. He tripped over his own feet in the control room and turned to share a laugh, only there was no one to share it with. He considered stopping off somewhere for a bite to eat, but realized that he was only hungry when she was around.

He was only a lot of things when she was around.

This…this was something they never taught at the Academy: Companion Withdrawal. Of course, technically, he wasn't supposed to even have companions. But ever since Susan, that sweet little girl he'd raised as his own family, it had seemed pointless to travel alone. He enjoyed the role of being a teacher. He'd felt so old at such a young age, and it had made him feel young again to experience that wide-eyed wonder and joy at visiting new places, seeing the unimaginable through someone else's eyes.

Life in the TARDIS without companions was just not the same. He didn't do lonely very well. He'd tried it once, but it had only lasted until…

…until he'd found Rose.

Damn it.

He sighed in irritation and yanked the spectacles off his nose, resisting the temptation to throw them across the room. It had been her decision. She'd wanted to leave.

He'd honestly thought he'd be okay with it. Well, maybe not okay, but he had thought he'd be able to handle it. Yes, he was more attached to Rose than to other companions for a number of reasons, but still…ever since he'd seen the look in her eyes when he regenerated, he'd been preparing for this.

He knew this would happen. Companions always leave. Seeing Sarah Jane had reinforced that. She'd left him not long after he'd regenerated as well. Oh, she had that spiel about waiting for him to come back for her, but he she hadn't really believed it. She'd said it herself; it had been time. Time for her to discover her own life.

So Sarah Jane had wanted something more from him that he hadn't given her. He hadn't known, had he? She just said she wanted to leave, and he wasn't about to force anyone to stay. Just because she hadn't found the life she wanted, she'd gone and blamed him for it when it was her decision to leave in the first place.

This time he did throw his glasses across the room, grimacing as they hit the central column of the control consol and shattered. Fantastic.

Placing his hands on one of the railings, he bent his head and took a few deep breaths to calm down. He wasn't angry at Sarah Jane, he knew that. He'd been happy to see her, if sad that she hadn't found what she was looking for after all.

But it was his fault a bit, wasn't it? Sarah Jane had thought that after all she'd seen, she'd be able to go back to Earth and find a normal life. Maybe she would have, someday, but she hadn't been ready for it. Not then. And he'd known that, somewhere inside. He'd known she wasn't ready to leave him.

He hadn't been ready for her to leave, either, but then he never was ready for that. It always hit him like a punch in the gut, and he had to smile and pretend like it was no big deal. Little birdies all grown up and flying on their own. Time to leave the nest.

He hadn't gone back to Sarah Jane, though, and that was his fault. With each regeneration certain memories got hazier. It was harder to recall exactly what he'd been thinking or feeling at some particular point, though he could recall everything else with perfect clarity. He knew there had been certain rational to certain decisions, but every now and then he just couldn't for the life of him remember what it had been.

Why hadn't he gone back to Sarah Jane? He'd known the sort of culture shock she'd experience going back to her own time permanently. The least he could have done for her was to drop by and help ease her into it. Had he been so angry with her inside that he'd just figured forgetting about her would be easier? Had he been so afraid of watching her age and die that he hadn't been willing to sacrifice his own fear for her sake?

Or had he really just not cared?

There were too many damn questions. One thing was certain when it came to Sarah Jane: he couldn't go back now. Not now that she'd finally come to terms with everything and was comfortable again. It would be too much, too painful. For both of them.

He'd loved Sarah Jane in his own way back then, every bit as much as he…well, he had. Still did care about her. Even though he hadn't been able to show it, to tell her, she'd charmed her way into his heart (his left one, probably. That was always the weakest one, the one on the same side as a human heart).

The question that had bugged him since seeing her again, though, was why? Why hadn't he ever told Sarah Jane or showed her more affection? Again, there were those reasons…he knew he'd had reasons. But none of them seemed to make sense now. Why?

Because Rose is gone, his brain insisted. Rose is gone and you miss her because you love her. You love her every bit as much as you cared for Sarah Jane or Romana or anyone else. Possibly more, because she was different.

Oh, she was just as human as any of them (except for Romana, because Romana was just…well, she'd been Romana). Just as silly, just as stupid at times, just as blundering. Just as wide-eyed, naïve, innocent, and endearing.

But he had held onto her in a way that he'd done to no one else. Not even Romana, the only woman he'd ever told he loved. Romana had been a refreshing spring breeze; a scent of pleasantry and lightness and fun. And she'd loved him, too, but she'd left him for a greater love: Gallifrey.

He had been angry over that for so long. He knew why, now. He'd wanted Romana to be what she could never be. He'd wanted her to be human.

Like Rose.

Rose, who he'd held onto like a drowning man holds onto his last breath of air. She'd become as integral to him as a heartbeat. A third heart. She'd seen a darker part of him, a part that had been burned, and she'd laughed the pain away and told him she wanted chips.

He closed his eyes and let go of the railing, slumping down to the grating with a resigned sigh. He knew. He'd been hers from that moment. That one moment on that crowded London street. Why hadn't he seen it then? It was so obvious now.

They'd seen the end of the world. Everything that had graced the Earth in all her long history; all of it erased in the dying gasps of a tired sun. All that history, gone in a single second. No great epiphany at the end. No great moment where God stepped in before the final boom and said "This is what it was all for." No reason for doing any of what humanity had done in all their eons of history.

But then they'd gone back and it hadn't mattered. London hadn't seemed futile, even though they both knew it would end in fire and dust. Just because the end was coming, Rose had said, didn't mean that they should just sit tightly and wait for it to happen. It didn't mean that humanity should waste the time it was given on the Earth while it was still there.

Just because a human would die sooner than he would didn't mean that he should waste the time he was given with her. It didn't mean he shouldn't love her.

He would hurt anyway. Why not hurt for the right reasons?

He'd driven her away, but he could get her back, he knew he could. He could fly the TARDIS right in front of her, step out, grab her hand…he could pull her close and tell her what it was she had wanted to hear, and he could mean every word of it.

He would mean every word of it.

It had been her decision, but she had only made it because of him. Because he pushed her aside. Because she was next to him, and it was easier to believe he loved someone trapped in the past – like a living painting from the eighteenth century – someone he could keep at a distance.

He couldn't fool himself any longer. It was his fault she left, even if she thought it was her own decision.

Standing, he straightened his suit with determination. He'd drag her back to the TARDIS if he had to. He'd go through her mum if he had to. Rose had braved the Time Vortex to get back to him once. He could brave a bit of Jackie Tyler.

By the time he arrived at the Powell estate location again, it had only been one day for him. Just one day, that was all.

He hadn't bothered to check the chronometer as he headed out of the TARDIS. He'd just figured that his wonderful ship had sensed his urgency and had made an extra careful landing, right where he wanted. It did that, usually. If it really mattered to him, the TARDIS never detoured.

Usually.

But after five steps outside his wonderful ship, he paused and looked around him for the first time. This was…different. The council flats were still there, but they were in horrid disrepair. They looked unfit for human habitation.

Beyond them, though, there were rising spires of buildings reaching towards the sky, and lanes of traffic on suspensor bridges. There were air cars and noises he recognized as alien music, and what the hell year had he landed in?

He looked at his watch and blanched. "But," he murmured, looking to the sky once more, "it was only one day…"

………………………………………………………………………………..

TBC


	2. Chapter 2

He stared at his watch in disbelief. The chronometer read 2007, one day exactly after he'd dropped Rose off, but it hadn't looked like this yesterday. It would take one hell of a paradox to bring about this sort of shift in the timeline, and besides, he'd have felt something if that were the case.

Then what in hell was going on?

He looked at his watch again, flicking it in irritation with his other hand. As he did so, the numbers began spinning. Oh, fantastic…he was wrong, afterall. His watch had been stuck, of all the stupid…

The thought broke off as the watch finally settled on a date. January the 18th, 2074.

Oh, shit.

Well, he'd just have to book it back to the TARDIS and get out of here before he got locked into events. He wanted Rose back, but somehow he felt she'd rather come along at age twenty-one rather than eighty-seven. Humans and their vanity.

Thankfully, the Powell Estate seemed long vacated, so he could at least get out of here without seeing anyone who would recognize him.

"Doctor?"

Or not.

A familiar, though hesitant, voice had spoken his name. Turning, he looked over his shoulder at the frowning and confused figure of none other than Jack Harkness.

"Jack," he said, for lack of anything better to say.

Hi, Jack, how ya doin'? How's life? Sorry I left you for dead back on Satellite Five, but y'know…proper timestream and all that. You know how it goes, mate.

Yeah, that wouldn't quite work, would it?

Jack was still frowning at him. "It is you, isn't it, Doctor?" he said, taking a small step towards him, brown leather jacket flapping in the breeze.

Why…? Oh. Regeneration, right. "Yeah, it's me."

"Right," Jack said quickly. "Well…"

"Yeah."

They stared at each for other for a long moment. The Doctor wasn't entirely sure what to expect; there seemed to be a full range of emotion behind those enigmatic eyes of Jack's. Finally the other man seemed to lose some sort of inner battle and just began to laugh.

Well, out of all possible reactions, laughter wasn't so bad.

"You look," Jack waved a hand, trying to find an appropriate word. "Well, you look good. Hell of a change."

"No joke there," the Doctor shrugged. "You look fit as always."

"Well…rebuilding the Earth after centuries of Dalek control does wonders for one's girlish figure," he quipped, and there was only the slightest undercurrent of steel to his voice.

"I'm sorry about that Jack, I am. But I couldn't come back for you."

Jack opened his mouth, but then closed it again, studying the Doctor for another long moment. "Did you want to?" he said finally.

"Want to what?"

"Come back for me."

"Oh. Yes, of course I did," he said. "But you were already locked into events, I couldn't-"

Jack cut him off. "I know. By resurrecting me, Rose altered the timeline and accidentally made me integral to the survival of the human civilization."

The Doctor blinked. "What? How did you know that?"

"She told me."

"What?!" The Doctor strode forward until he stood face to face with the other man. "How did she know that? And when did you talk to her?"

Jack winced. "It's going to take a bit of explaining."

"Then you'd better start. Actually, no, I'm sorry, start with why the hell you're here, and then let's go from there, shall we?"

The former Time Agent rocked back on his heels and seemed to consider his next words carefully. "Rose sent me."

The Doctor closed his eyes for a moment, and sucked in a deep breath. Before Jack could continue, he held up a hand. "I think I'm beginning to understand how humans feel all the time. Now, you say Rose sent you?"

"Yep."

"Is this Rose from the current timeline, Rose from an earlier timeline, or Rose from a later timeline?"

"Current."

The Doctor paused. Well, now he new for certain that Rose at least lived to eighty-seven. Then a thought occurred to him. "Right, current," he repeated. "So would that be a Rose here in London or a Rose traveling with you?"

"Here in London," Jack clarified. "She hasn't traveled with me in….oh, five, maybe six years? She got a bit upset after the whole rocket incident. I think I'm still in the doghouse for that one."

"Spry for an old lady is she, then?"

Jack outright grinned. "Best looking eighty-seven year old you'll ever meet."

The Doctor raised an eyebrow. At least that was answered. "Obviously, since she's not really eighty-seven, if you've been jumping her around time tracks."

"I'm good at jumping."

"So I hear. Alright, let's get to the part where you and she knew I was coming. I'm guessing you've met up with me already and I told you?"

Jack swallowed a bit nervously, and looked anywhere but in the Doctor's face. Odd behavior for Jack. He'd never have pegged the brash American as the submissive type. "You could, ah…you could say that. In a manner of speaking."

That got his attention. For all his training, all his skill, Jack was still an amateur compared to the Doctor. And an amateur messing around with his own personal timeline was never good. And by 'never good' he meant 'extremely bad'.

And by 'extremely bad' he really meant 'extremely bad in catastrophic proportions'.

"Jack," he said, a warning tone in his voice. "Explain. Now."

"I can't."

Angrily the Doctor pointed a finger and edged closer, nearly nose-to-nose with Jack. "Don't give me that. You do not get to be enigmatic on me. I wrote the book on enigmatic."

Instead of arguing back as he would have expected, Jack merely took a step backwards and raised his hands in another submissive gesture. "I didn't say I wouldn't explain…but I can't. I really can't. I'm not exactly sure how everything happened. You need to see Rose."

Oh, no. It wasn't even Jack messing with his timeline, it was Rose. That could be doubly bad.

"Look," Jack said, finally giving up. "I just showed up here yesterday for my godkids' birthday party, and Rose told me to go here and collect you because Sarah Jane had some press conference thing and couldn't do it. And she warned me that it might not be a you I'd recognize, and that's about all I've got to work on right now."

The Doctor gaped. Just a tiny bit, but still…it was a gape. "I don't often say this," he said, "but I think I'm more confused than I ever have been in my entire life. And that's saying a lot."

"Let's see if I can clear that up a bit. I've met Sarah Jane Smith. Lovely woman, hung around with Rose a lot until she got that job as an interplanetary ambassador." Jack ticked off his fingers as he spoke. "What else?"

"Godkids?" the Doctor squeaked out.

"Right," Jack nodded, looking just a bit too gleeful. "I'm a godfather."

"Rose's?" he asked, and tried valiantly not to let a bit of himself die when Jack nodded in confirmation.

"Yep, Mama Rose. Firstborn son Jamie Tyler, just turned eleven and baby girl Gwyneth is a lovely little six year old. And by 'lovely', I mean 'slightly demonic'."

Jamie and Gwyneth. The miraculous boy who survived the gas mask plague and the remarkable young woman who saved the world. Good names.

Rose had kids. Why did that hurt so much? He should be happy for her.

"Where is she?" the Doctor asked in a small voice, swallowing past the sudden and completely illogical lump in his throat.

"Picking up the kids from school. We're supposed to meet her. You game? You look a little green, Doctor."

"I'm fine," he lied.

Jack swallowed. "Look, I'm a time traveler by profession and these kinds of things still give me headaches. I know it seems like a long time since you've seen them, but it's only been a day for them, I think. Longer for Rose, but that's because…well, that's a long story, and I told her she needed to stop trying to repair the quantum drive on the S75 Slipstream without the manual."

"Can we just go see Rose now?"

"Yeah. Transmat okay with you?"

"I don't care at this point. Trans-away."

……………………………………………………………………………….

"I swear," Rose said, exasperated. "I swear this bleedin' thing worked last time when I did this."

"Mum, I don't think you should be messing with it anymore. Jack said not to."

"Jack's a git."

"Mum!" Jamie Tyler rolled his eyes. He sat cross-legged against the hull of the family S75 Slipstream. "Do you not remember what happened last time?"

"Don't get smart with me. And hand me that wrench. No," Rose pulled her head out of the engine, "not that one, the sonic one."

"Honestly, who needs a sonic wrench?"

"We do."

"We do not," Jamie argued. "You're such a liar, Mum."

"Yeah, well, you won full marks in applied science for that, so quit your whinging."

"I'm not whinging," he sniffed. "I'm just saying, it took you six full months to track down Jack, and it's not like he can just nip off and save you every time you screw up 'cause you think you're smarter than you really are."

"Oi," Rose glared at him. "The mouth on you!"

"Got it from you. Point is, Mum, you don't know how to fix the quantum engine on an S75 Slipstream, and you should just take it to the mechanic like everyone else does. You're only working on it now because you're nervous and you want something to occupy yourself with until he gets here."

Rose sighed. Insightful little bugger, her son. She put down the sonic wrench and reached out, pulling Jamie into a firm hug.

"Mum!" he protested, but didn't move away from her. "I could fix it, you know," he said after a moment, his voice muffled against her arm. "I know how to fix it."

"I know you do. And I know you haven't yet because I haven't asked you to. And I know you let me tinker around with it because I like having something to tinker around with. You know what else I know?"

"What?"

She kissed the top of his head. "I know I love you very much."

"Mum," he protested again, and this time did wiggle away from her, cheeks burning.

Rose grinned. "Go get your sister from her classes. I'm going to go get this grease cleaned off me."

She watched him walk away and smiled when he turned around. "Mum?" he called.

"Yeah?"

"Iloveyoutoo," he said quickly, then darted through the hangar bay doors.

……………………………………………………………………………….

The school Jack had mentioned had turned out to be some sort of gigantic satellite installation. Wonderful. They had such good track records with satellites.

As they stepped out of the transmat chamber, the Doctor paused, looking up at the large sign hanging above the door.

"Torchwood," he said. "I've heard that before."

"Institution started by Queen Victoria to research, investigate, and if need be, contain any and all situations pertaining to extra-terrestrial and/or paranormal activity. One of Great Britain's most covert operations for most of the twentieth century," Jack explained. "I worked for them at one point."

"They were involved in the Sycorax incident," the Doctor frowned. "If I'm not mistaken, and I'm not, then they were responsible for adapting the alien technology that destroyed the retreating Sycorax ship."

Jack shrugged and motioned him to keep walking. "Before my time," he said. "Torchwood moved out of the shadows after the attempted Tirranial Invasion of 2014. That was mostly Rose's fault, though Sarah Jane Smith's insider report got broadcasted on every single television station. You should have seen the look on the Prime Minister's face."

"Sarah Jane?" the Doctor asked, surprised.

They turned down a brightly-lit corridor. The Doctor sidestepped a decorative fern. This was a posh satellite, he had to admit.

"Sarah Jane Smith," Jack rattled off, "worked with UNIT as a press liason until 2008 when she went missing for a year."

"Where'd she go?"

Jack gave him a look that he couldn't read. "The wedding," he said, as if that explained everything. "At any rate, when she came back to Earth she got involved in the Farristellian Incident and wound up helping Harriet Jones negotiate the first draft of the Earth-Farristell Pact of Alliance."

The Doctor grinned. "Good for her."

"Hell of a woman," Jack smiled. The Doctor looked at him quickly, but Jack studiously avoided his gaze. "At any rate, Sarah Jane then accepted a position as ambassador to Farristell. She's lived there ever since, though she comes to Earth once every five years to formally re-sign the Pact."

"Farristell," the Doctor mused. "That's about halfway past the Pleiadian Sector. Good bit of distance. And from what I remember, the Farristellian environment is very condusive to good health for humans."

"That's an understatement. Advent of the Farristellian technology and medicine derived from the Farristell biosphere has nearly tripled the expected lifespan of the average human being. You should see Sarah Jane, she looks fantastic."

"She always has."

As they rounded another corner, the Doctor found himself colliding with a fast-moving, brown-haired boy. He helped the boy to his feet and brushed him off. "You alright?" he asked.

"Ow."

"Jamie!" Jake cried.

The child grinned back. "Jack!"

"Where are you going in such a hurry?" Jack frowned.

"Got to pick up Gwyn from class. Need to hurry. Mum's fiddling with the ship again." And with that, the boy took off down the hallway, leaving the Doctor and Jack to stare after him.

"I think we're a bit early," Jack said.

"That…that was Rose's son?" the Doctor asked, wishing he'd gotten a better look at the boy.

Jack looked confused at something. "Guess he didn't recognize you," he shrugged and continued walking.

"Recognize me from when? Jack, if it's something that hasn't happened yet, you know you can't tell me!"

"Don't worry," Jack said enigmatically, ignoring the Doctor's previous warnings about enigmas. "It's not from your future."

The door they stopped in front of swooshed open. The Doctor looked around himself at the vast space and the rows of parked space shuttles and ships. "Gorgeous," he said.

"What's gorgeous is over there," Jack pointed. "Go say hi before she vanishes in another puff of quantum tunneling. I told her to stop messing with it." He muttered the last part pretty much to himself as the Doctor walked away, captivated.

Rose.

She was turning around from the spaceship engine she was evidently trying to repair. He remembered all her mishaps from trying to repair the TARDIS with him, and smiled. It's a wonder the spaceship was still in one piece.

Rose caught sight of him and froze. His pace slowed, and his steps nearly faltered. Would she be angry? The row they'd separated over hadn't been pretty. Could she be angry that he'd shown up now, but not before?

How long had she waited for him to come back?

He stopped in front of her and just stood, looking at her. Rose, his fantastic Rose. She looked amazing. She…

…still looked the same.

That was odd.

………………………………………………………………………………….

TBC


	3. Chapter 3

"Rose."

It was barely more than a whisper that escaped his lips, but she smiled at him when she heard it. Her hair was a bit longer, a bit less blonde, and wrapped haphazardly in a knot at the top of her head. Instead of her usual uniform of jeans and trendy tops she wore an old, worn-out worker's coverall that had engine grease and God knew what else strewn across it.

She'd never been more beautiful.

"You're a bit early," she said, smoothing an imaginary wrinkle in the coverall.

He stared at her, still unable to look away. "How'd you even know I'd be here?"

Her smile widened a bit, and she shrugged slightly. "You told me."

He felt himself beginning to grin, in spite of his confusion. It was all just so bloody crazy and so completely his life that he couldn't help but grin. "I did, did I?"

Rose grinned back and started to laugh. "Yeah. Yeah, you did."

They laughed together and inexplicably, he felt a sort of weight lift off his chest. Then a thought occurred to him. "Did I, er…did I say why?"

She tilted her head at him and gave him an amused look. "You didn't say, no."

"Oh."

"But," she continued, "you never had to."

"…oh." He stared at her. Did she mean what he thought she meant? She knew how much he loved her? That horrible argument they'd had resurfaced in his memory. She hadn't known then. Hell, he hadn't known then.

Obviously, something had changed.

She smirked as if she could hear his thoughts. "Yeah, you see," she said, pushing a bit of hair back into its place, "when you marry someone, it's usually implied that you love them."

His jaw dropped and he reeled a bit as her words sunk in. But before he had a chance to respond, she was still talking and his ears had to play catch-up.

"Besides, there's the kids, you know. I mean, obviously you lot have various ways of reproducing, but it's still seldom that a Time Lord hitches himself to a woman he doesn't love and then makes babies the old-fashioned way. Isn't it considered a bit taboo unless there's a serious personal attachment involved?"

He looked quickly back over his shoulder at Jack, who shrugged and walked away. So much for male solidarity. Bastard.

"I," the Doctor began. "I, wait…what? They're my kids? Rose, are you having me on?"

She bit her lip and winced. "No, I'm not."

His pulse sped up a bit. "You're seriously not joking?"

"Nope."

"They're my children?" he repeated.

She shrugged. "Yup."

"Mine…mine and yours?"

"Yes," she nodded.

He started to grin like an idiot. This was absolutely insane and a bit impossible, but this was the sort of thing he lived for, wasn't it? Even if was totally different and nothing he'd ever expected and absolutely wonderful and –

His thought pattern broke off after that bit because he was a bit occupied with the physical task of grabbing Rose and snogging her senseless.

Snog first. Explanations later.

Rose gave a soft little gasp against his mouth as his hand tightened on her waist. As he captured her bottom lip and tugged gently, he felt that there was something oddly familiar in this. He'd kissed her once before, to save her life, but this was different and yet…something felt the same about it.

He knew, somehow, just what she'd do with her tongue when it met his. He knew the exact instant she would arc her back and press herself closer to him.

And the look in her eyes of dazed love as he pulled away was something he knew he'd seen before, even though he hadn't.

"How long?" he gasped, forehead pressed to hers.

It took her a moment to respond, her grip tightening on his shoulder as she attempted to stay upright. "What? How long until what?"

"When do I come back for you? How long do I have to wait, how long do I have to travel without you until we can be together again?"

She stared at him and swallowed slightly, regaining her composure. "I don't understand."

"Rose," he said, stepping away from her slightly so he could concentrate and wouldn't keep staring at her lips. "You say we're married. You say we have children."

"That's right."

"But that hasn't happened for me yet," he said patiently. "Which means its in my future, which means I can't stay here. If I do, I risk changing things and I really don't think I want to do that."

"Oh," she said, as realization hit her. She turned away from him for a moment, covering her mouth, then turned back. "I hadn't thought about this, about how you'd react. I mean, I knew…I had an idea what would happen, but now…I really don't know how to explain this."

"Explain what?" he frowned.

She looked down at the floor and rubbed the back of her neck as she considered what to say. "I didn't marry a future you."

"I don't understand. Rose, you had to have. I think I'd remember if I married you. I'm fairly certain I'd remember having children. I know I occasionally forget where I put my socks or where the backup hot water heater is on the TARDIS, but you giving birth to my children is something I think would stick out a bit, don't you?" He frowned.

"You'd think, yeah," she agreed, finally looking up at him. "But you don't remember."

"Oh, no," he said, glancing wildly around. "I haven't landed in an alternative dimension, have I? That happens so rarely, but it's possible that I miscalculated…"

"You always miscalculate," she snorted, "but no, this is the original time stream. Your original time stream and mine."

"And since when were you an expert on the matter?"

"Since I married you and learned you talk in your sleep."

He blinked. "I talk in my sleep?"

"You used to, at least. The version of you I married does."

He ran a hand through his hair. "How is this possible? If you're right, and this isn't an alternate dimension…then this isn't bloody possible! It's a paradox, an anomaly. See, if you went back and did anything with any previous version of myself, then this me…this current body you see before you, would remember. My memories alter when something like that happens, and they haven't in this case."

"No, they wouldn't," Rose shook her head, "because they're not new memories. They were always there."

"Rose, remember when I said that humans so rarely make sense? You're only proving my theory."

Instead of laughing or smiling or even explaining, Rose crossed her arms and stared at the floor for what felt like an eternity. "I've been to Gallifrey," she said softly.

His hearts both stopped for a beat.

"We lived there for a bit, you and I," she continued, turning away from him again. "It has a sky like amber, and in summer when the sun fades it turns the deepest, most beautiful shade of red anywhere in the universe. Some of the trees have silver leaves, and there's a grove of those outside your house – our house – and they bear this fruit that tastes like apples and pears and bananas all in one. And…"

"Stop."

His universe was imploding around him. There was a roaring in his ears as memories tried to push themselves to the front of his mind, and every breath he took felt as if it were fire itself.

And when she turned around again to look at him, he saw in her eyes that she felt it, too. She'd really been there, she'd seen it…and she knew, the same as him…she knew what had been lost. She felt what had been lost.

Rose was sharing a pain with him that he never would have wished on anyone. Especially her.

She went on, gently. "I had to live there," she whispered, her voice growing hoarse. "I lived there with you. I was so happy there with you and our children and Susan. With Leela and Andred and even Romana after we stopped trying to kill each other."

He closed his eyes, each name she mentioned bringing a fresh stab of pain.

"And every day, every second, I knew…" A sob escaped her, and it took her a minute to compose herself enough to continue talking, though she was still crying. "I knew what would happen to that beautiful world and all those people. Every time you smiled at me, every time we went to a festival or took the kids sightseeing. Every time we discussed political policy with Romana or…I knew, in the back of my head, I knew what would happen to them all. And I could never say a word of it."

"Rose…" He opened his eyes, finally, looking at her. For the first time, he saw a mirror of his own pain and loss…someone else finally understanding that darkness and guilt that had been plaguing him.

Rose had known. She'd seen the outcome of the Time War. She'd ended it, herself. But she hadn't said anything. She hadn't changed it.

Did that make it her fault?

That's what she was thinking, he could tell. And he wasn't sure that he had an answer for her, not anymore.

But even if she bore some of the blame for it, like him, it could never be her fault, not entirely.

"I must have known," he managed, at last. "I must have known that you were from my future. And even if I disregarded all the rules about that sort of thing, even if I threw all caution to the wind for you, I would have known there were some things I could never ask you about."

She nodded, swallowing, unable to speak.

"Oh, Rose," he sighed, "what have I put you through?"

She stepped close to him again, touching his face gently with her hand, wiping away tears he hadn't realized he'd shed. "Nothing I didn't go through willingly."

"Why can't I remember?"

"How much do you really remember of the Time War and the years before it? You know what happened, your mind lets you remember that, but it's so terrible a thing…I reckon it's like Post Traumatic Stress Disorder or something." She wrapped her arms around his neck and leaned into him. "I imagine you do remember, somewhere, but you haven't let yourself dwell on it because it's just so incredibly painful."

He held her for a long moment, and then it sank in. "I survived," he breathed into her hair. "I survived…for you."

She said nothing, but pulled him into another kiss. He could taste the salt of their mingled tears when his tongue lingered on the corner of her lip. He felt as though he could easily lose himself in her; surrender all the weight of his years, every burden he carried, every loss he suffered.

This was love, then. He'd loved before, many times, and he'd been loved. But he hadn't been in love, in the human sense. He'd never given himself over to passion completely, and he'd never let himself be owned by anyone. For a human to love, there was always some degree of possession, and it was something he could never give.

But he was Rose's, wasn't he? She'd claimed him, all that time ago on Gamestation when she'd absorbed the Time Vortex to save his life. He was her Doctor. He'd thought it would only be that body, that version of himself that she claimed, but it stayed with him.

It was with him even before that. She was with him.

He broke the kiss gently, but still held on to her. "So," he said finally, "where am I now, then?"

"You left," she replied. "A day ago. Romana sent word."

He winced. "It's started, then?"

"Yeah," she closed her eyes, and he felt the tickle of her eyelashes against his neck. "It's started. You told me you'd be back for me in a day."

"And you figured that it would be a different version of me, one that had remembered everything?"

She shrugged. "That or you'd realize that you'd been a complete prat about that stupid argument and you'd come back for me. Jamie understand this things better than I do, of course, and said the TARDIS wouldn't let you land in 2007 since the other you was about to land there and stumble across me. He figured she'd probably bring you here, like it or not."

He smiled. "That's my beautiful ship. And my clever Rose. And," he added, smile widening, "my apparently well-educated, brilliant children who I have yet to meet."

"Again."

"What?"

"You've yet to meet them again," she corrected. "You've already met them once. You're the one that had to play catch when Gwyneth was born. Mind you, Leela had to keep pinching you to make sure you didn't faint on us like you did when it had been Jamie."

He started to laugh. "Are you serious? I fainted?"

"Leela said Andred did the same thing when their son was born. She also said you lot tried to pass it off as natural birth being so rare on Gallifrey that it wasn't your fault you hadn't seen it before."

"It's such a gory event with you humans," he grimaced. "Like something out of a Sam Pekinpah film."

"Stop it," she giggled, smacking him. "That's terrible. Come on, let's go see the kids. Maybe they'll jog your memory or Jamie will have some flash of inspiration."

They linked hands and began to walk towards the exit, the Doctor teasing her into telling him the story about getting tossed halfway across space and time because she'd accidentally crossed the wires on her spaceship's quantum drive. "It's Farristellian technology," she tried to explain, "so it's not like it's my fault, really, that the instructions are only printed in Farristellian. The TARDIS was gone, so there was no telepathic translation, so what was I supposed to do? Sit around with a broken spaceship?"

"Jack said it took him a year to find you," he snorted. "I'm sure the kids are fluent in Farristellian, why didn't you ask one of them?"

"What makes you think they're fluent?"

"Well, they're my children, aren't they? Good genetics. Smart little blighters, I bet."

"Brilliant," she grinned at him.

"Besides, you obviously knew enough Farristellian to read the instructions on the beauty products. I mean, look at you!"

"What do you mean?" she blinked.

He waggled his free hand at her. "You! You haven't aged a single day. I mean, your hair's gone a bit different, and your sense of style has obviously gone down hill, but there's not a wrinkle on you. At the very least you should be into your thirties by now –"

"Thirty-six."

"My point exactly," he nodded, "but you still look every bit the twenty-year-old. That's got to be some Farristellian product, there."

"Actually it's not, it's…" she trailed off as a familiar sound reached her ears.

He noted it, too and they both stopped in their tracks and stared at each other. "Doctor, you got someone else with you?" she frowned.

"No." His eyes widened.

"No one who can fly the TARDIS?"

"No, just me. It's only been a day for me since I dropped you off in 2007."

"But," she said, "that's the TARDIS."

"Yeah, it is."

"That's your TARDIS," she reiterated.

He didn't respond, and they watched, dumbfounded, as the very familiar shape of one blue Police Public Call Box materialized just in front of them.

Rose dropped his hand and took a step forward while he fished in his pockets for the sonic screwdriver. But before he could pull it out, the TARDIS door burst open and a figure he knew all too well burst from it and fell to the ground in a tattered heap.

"Oh, shit," he breathed.

Rose gasped and looked at him, then back at the man lying on the floor. "But…" she gaped. "How?"

She rushed forward and pulled the man on the floor into her lap, tapping the side of his face with her palm. The man opened his eyes, looking from her to the Doctor. The two men stared at each other, wide-eyed and disbelieving.

"Well," the eighth version of himself said between gasps, "this is potentially problematic."

……………………………………………………………………………..

TBC


	4. Chapter 4

"'Potentially' problematic?" The Doctor echoed.

"Yes," his other self replied. "Though, I suppose without the 'potentially' bit."

Rose was still looking back and forth between them, obviously at a loss. "I don't understand," she said. "What's going on? This isn't meant to happen."

"Change in plans, love," the Doctor in her arms said, looking up at her.

"You're hurt," she said softly to him, running a hand gently down his cheek, and the current Doctor tried valiantly to not be jealous of himself.

He stepped over to them and offered his hand to the him on the floor. Rose's eyes widened. "Shouldn't you not do that?"

"Do what?" The eighth him asked as he took the offered hand up.

"That," she said weakly.

"Not a big deal for me," the Doctor said, brushing a bit of rubble off his earlier self, who nodded in thanks. "See, that's one of the reasons regeneration came about in the first place. We are the same person, but we're not the same matter…it minimizes the risk of a dangerous paradox."

"I've done this before," the eighth Doctor said, helping Rose to her feet. "Although last time there were considerably more of me."

"Five, in fact. It was weird. We ended up saving the day, but spent most of the time criticizing wardrobe choices."

"Gracious, some of the things I wore…"

"Like that bloody scarf."

"I miss that scarf."

"I was always tripping over it, though."

"Yes, but it was a fantastic scarf."

"Yeah, it was."

"Good heavens, do you remember that clown jacket?"

"Oh, that thing was hideous. I do miss that haircut, though."

"Oi!" Rose shouted. "Can we get back to the problem at hand, please?"

"There's no need to shout, darling," the eighth Doctor said.

She stared at him like he'd just grown antennae out of his forehead. Before either version of himself had a chance to respond, the landing bay doors slid open, a small voice cried "Daddy!" and the eighth Doctor was knocked back to the floor again as a tiny shape in a frilly skirt and pigtails leaped onto him.

"Muffin!" he cried happily.

The current Doctor's eyebrows raised to his hairline. "'Muffin'?" he mouthed at Rose, who laughed and shook her head.

The boy he'd met earlier in the hallway skidded to a halt next to Rose, who put an hand on his shoulder. The boy, panting for breath, looked back and forth between the eighth and tenth versions of his father and gaped.

"Oh, that's not good," he said.

"'Ello, Jamie," his father said, voice muffled by the lump of six-year-old currently fastened round his neck.

"Hello, Dad," Jamie said. He looked over to the other Doctor. "Hello, Dad," he repeated.

"Hello, son," the Doctor said weakly.

……………………………………………………………

Jamie entered a few sequences into the TARDIS computer and brought up the holographic display.

The eighth Doctor's TARDIS, actually, not his. His was still down on the surface by the abandoned Powell Estate. He'd briefly considered transmatting back down to confront his TARDIS and demand to know what she thought she was doing.

He'd never get a straight answer, though. He never did. The TARDIS could translate any alien language in existence except her own.

If she even had a language.

Rose hovered over Eight (as she'd started calling him, much to his irritation) with a few medical supplies. Gwyneth was helping her, pigtails bouncing as she hopped up and down from her chair to fetch things for her mum.

Jack had come back with the children and had ushered them all into the TARDIS so they could figure out what was going on. He seemed a bit irritated with both versions of the Doctor for being completely nonplussed about causing a potential paradox.

For all his carefree attitude, Jack had always fretted a bit overmuch about the finer points of time travel. Which was a bit ridiculous when the circumstances of their first meeting was considered.

Time Agents. He'd never understand them.

"There," said Jamie as the holographic generator settled in on a three-dimensional representation of space-time fabric. "Look, here, I think I found the problem."

Clever lad, the Doctor thought proudly. Gwyneth looked at her brother, then up at the display, band aid forgotten in her hand. "That one bit's gone all funny," she said, pointing. "It's making all the other bits go funny as well."

Everyone looked at her, and both versions of the Doctor grinned. Clever girl, too.

"What's it mean?" Rose asked.

The two Doctors exchanged glances. "All yours," said his eighth self.

He nodded at the other him and looked up at the holographic display. "It means something's gone wrong. Something happened in the Time War that wasn't meant to happen."

"Like what?" Jack asked.

The Doctor shrugged. "My memories aren't all that clear, and that version of me over there wouldn't be aware of the difference, not having lived it before."

"Okay, now…what's wrong with your memories again?" Jack frowned. "I didn't get that part."

He shrugged. "It could be any number of things, really. I'm betting it has something to do with my regenerations. I lost my memory briefly when I regenerated into that handsome fellow over there –" he gestured to Eight, who grinned " – because of an anesthetic that had dulled my sense. Nearly killed me, it did."

"Seriously?" Jack asked.

Eight nodded. "Indeed. I awoke in a San Francisco hospital morgue on New Year's Eve 1999 with absolutely no idea who I was."

"Grace still giggles about the toe-tag," Rose snorted.

The Doctors looked at each other. "She's met Grace?"

The other Doctor smiled. "Oh, yes."

He blinked in surprise. "How long were you in the doghouse?"

"With Grace or Rose?"

"Either."

Eight winced. "A while."

"We're friends now," Rose grinned. "Best mates, even."

The Doctors looked at each other again and shrugged. "Women," they said in unison.

"Anyway," Jamie interrupted. "Getting on with it…" He punched a few more switches and the holograph zoomed in. "Look what I just found."

The Doctor took a step forward. "Oh, no."

Eight stood and set Gwyneth down from her perch on his knee. "That isn't good," he said.

"Jack," the Doctor said over his shoulder, "can you transmat my TARDIS up here to the landing bay?"

Jack nodded and headed out of the ship.

Rose frowned. "What is it? What's going on?"

"There isn't really a name for it," the Doctor said, "other than Very Very Extremely Monumentally Terribly Insanely Bad."

"No, there is a name for it," Jamie said, looking at him. He had such old, wise eyes for a such a young boy.

Just like his father.

Rose looked at him questioningly, and he in turn looked to his previous self, who shook his head. "It's a human word," he said in his soft, upper-class voice, "but you're right, Jamie, I think it applies."

"What's that?" asked Rose.

"Armageddon," he said grimly.

……………………………………………………………………………

"Rose, I said hold the other one down."

The TARDIS controls sparked. "No, you didn't, you said hold the green one down!"

"That is the green one!" the Doctor protested.

"No, that's the green one over there. This one is clearly blue," she argued.

"It is not! It's…oh, it is blue. Alright, then, hold the blue one down!" he grinned insanely at her and she shook her head in disbelief.

"This is ridiculous. Nine hundred years old and you couldn't have taken a few piloting classes?"

"Oi! I'll have you know I got top marks at the Academy for my piloting skills." He tugged frantically at a few switches and oddments plastered onto the consol, which sparked again.

"You went to an Academy? What'd you do, cheat your way through it, then?" Rose snorted, attempting to steady herself by extending one leg behind her and bracing it on the railing.

"You think you're funny, Rose Tyler, but you're really not," he said in a fake haughty voice, reminding her of an incident in a recent adventure and she laughed. The Great Havornaidaldobiallian had asked her to tell jokes, after all. Not her fault they were obviously only funny to humans.

Suddenly an alarm began to sound and the Doctor's head snapped up. "What in hell?"

He looked panicked, which made Rose panic. "What? What is it? What's wrong?"

"I don't know," he replied, and she really wished he hadn't said that. That never boded well. "Something's wrong with our path through the Vortex, but that shouldn't happen…"

The alarm blared louder and a second alarm began to sound on top of it. The TARDIS began to shake uncontrollably. "Rose!" he shouted. "Grab something and hang on!"

She tumbled to the grating just as he did, and threw one arm out to grab the bottom of the sparking consol. There was a terrible tearing noise, and Rose felt as if someone had taken a knife to her eardrums.

She lost her grip with the final shudder of the TARDIS, sliding across the grating and into the railing, which she grabbed onto in just enough time to keep her from falling into the machinery bits below.

After a long, dazed moment, the TARDIS finally seemed to be stable. She lifted her head and looked over at the Doctor, who was slowly getting to his feet.

"You alright?" he asked, offering her a hand up.

She took it and stood, checking herself gingerly for injuries. "Bit of a bruise on my rump, but otherwise I'm alright, I think. What was that?"

"I don't know," he said again. "I've never felt anything like that."

"There was a tearing sound, did you hear it?"

He nodded, face tight. "Yeah, I did."

"Was it the TARDIS?" she asked, concerned.

"No," he answered, walking over to the monitor and pulling up a screen full of data. "I don't know what it was, but it can't be good. We've landed somewhere, though."

"Where? And when?" Rose rotated her left foot. Her ankle was a bit sore, but she didn't think she'd damaged it much.

"Space station in high orbit around Earth…looks like the year 2074." He was frowning darkly at the monitor, mouth drawn taught, blue eyes nearly piercing a hole in the computer screen.

"Doctor?" she asked. "You alright?"

He shook his head as if clearing it. "Yeah. No. I don't know. I just…I sense something."

"Like…telepathically or something?"

"Yeah," he looked at her. "I don't know what it is, but there's something really not right about this. Stay here."

"Not a chance," she snorted as he walked past her.

He paused at the door, looking back at her. "Alright, then, come on." He pointed a finger at her. "But no wandering off this time, and I mean that, for once. Something is very not right about all this, and if something goes wrong I want you near me, alright?"

"Alright," she smiled.

He smiled back at her as he opened the door. "Grab my jacket, would you?"

"Yep," she turned around and picked it up off the grating from where it'd fallen.

"Thanks."

"Wouldn't want you to go anywhere without your armor," she drawled, holding it up.

He slid his arms through the worn black leather and shrugged it into place. "That's right," he agreed, grinning, and held out a hand. "Let's go, then."

……………………………………………………………………………

TBC


	5. Chapter 5

"'Armageddon'?" Rose stared at the holograph. "I've seen the end of the world. It's not like this."

"It's not the end of the world, Rose," The Doctor said, fishing his glasses out of his pinstriped pocket. "It's the end of all things."

"There's some sort of massive instability just there," Jamie said, pointing. His father, the other incarnation of the Doctor, nodded his agreement.

Rose crossed her arms and frowned up at the display. "It looks like its spreading," she said, as the display shifted.

"That's because it is," Jack confirmed. "I see it now. See, that main line there is our timeline, the one that's all thick and bold. But you see how it's beginning to twist there? There's a great big paradox right in the middle of it, and it's effects are spreading to alternate timelines."

"If enough alternate timelines become too unstable, they…oh, it's difficult to explain," the eighth Doctor rubbed the bridge of his nose. "You see, if they start crossing quantum barriers, matter begins to cross each other and…"

"Universe go boom," Rose interjected dryly. "I understand enough about quantum physics to know what happens when you cross alternate time streams. Well," she corrected, "enough to know it's bad."

"You know anything about quantum physics?" The Tenth Doctor blinked owlishly at her through his eyeglasses.

She shot him a glare. "You're the one who insisted I get a proper education."

Eight rolled his eyes. "What she means is that Romana insulted her intelligence by offering to send her a tutor, so instead of telling her to shove off, she accepted the offer and learned everything her lovely little human brain could hold."

"I forgot most of it when we left Gallifrey," Rose admitted. "But you should have seen the look on Romana's face at the next dinner party."

"I don't remember her being that bitchy," the Doctor snorted.

His previous self shrugged. "She got elected president."

"Good point."

"She was alright once she got over you being married to a stupid ape," Rose said. "So what do we do about this paradox? Presumably we find it and fix it?"

Jack shook his head. "It's moving."

Rose frowned. "I don't understand."

Jack shrugged. "Yeah, me either. I've never seen anything like this. But if this continues…if the fabric of space-time becomes any further unwound…"

"Then it really is Armageddon," the Doctor said. "The end of all things."

A pinging sound erupted from the TARDIS control. Gwyneth frowned and tugged her pigtails over her ears, hiding behind Jack's legs. "What's that? I don't remember that sound," the Doctor frowned.

"Proximity alert," Eight explained, flicking a control and pulling down a view screen. "For the station…oh." His face immediately drained of color.

The other Doctor, Rose and Jack all moved in behind him to get a view. "Oh, my God," Rose said. "How can this be? This isn't possible!"

"It's a Time War," the tenth Doctor said grimly. "Anything's possible. Do you remember what I told you back in Cardiff in 1869? Your world can be rewritten in the blink of an eye?"

She met his gaze, eyes wide with fear. "I remember."

"So can mine."

"Doctor…" Jack said. "That's the same fleet."

"Same fleet as what?" the eighth Doctor frowned. "It's not the same fleet I just fought. That fleet was destroyed around Nestenrania in 586 BC, Earth reckoning. The only other fleet we knew of should be on their way to Gallifrey now, not here."

"No, it's not the same fleet that attacked Gallifrey," Jack said. "It's the same fleet that attacked Earth in 200100."

"Damn!" Rose pulled her mobile phone from her pocket. The same mobile, the Doctor noticed, raising an eyebrow. She pressed a button he didn't remember seeing before. "This is the Director," she said, "Send a priority signal: All Stations to Alert Status One. Get the shield satellites up and initiate invasion protocol. Repeat: All Stations to Alert Status One. Alert Status One. Invasion Imminent."

"Mum's the Director of Torchwood now," Jamie explained to the confused Doctor.

"I've got to get to the control room," Rose said. "Jack, come with me." She looked at both of the Doctors. "You two, figure out what's going on and how to stop it. We'll buy you the time. And you two," she leveled a look at her children, "will stay here, inside the TARDIS, and you will do precisely as your told, do you understand?"

"But mum, if I can –"

"No, Jamie," she said firmly. "You will not step foot outside this ship unless either of us tells you to, do you understand me?"

He turned to his father. "Dad, if you let me –"

"No, Jamie," he echoed Rose. "Your mother is right." He knelt before his son, putting a hand on the boy's shoulder, his blue eyes intense. "You're a brave boy, my son, and you're brilliant. You've seen and done things no one else your age in the universe has seen and done. But this foe is beyond you, do you understand that? These aren't any ordinary enemy, Jamie.

They're Daleks."

……………………………………………………………………..

"All Stations to Alert Status One…"

The voice repeated, and Rose stared at the speaker. "Does that sound a bit familiar to you, Doctor?"

He scratched one leather-clad shoulder and frowned. "Yeah. Sounds a bit like you, doesn't it? Must come from the same region of London as you."

"Must, yeah," she shrugged. "Where are we?"

"Maintenance tunnel, looks like," he said, taking her hand again and moving forward. "I think it opens up out here into some sort of landing bay."

"Feel like I'm in Star Wars," Rose muttered. "Like I should have big buns on the side of my head and a lightsaber."

"Those things are so flash," he snorted.

"What, lightsabers? I've always wanted one. I used to have the biggest crush on Luke Skywalker."

"I could make a Freudian comment there, but I'm going to be a good boy and restrain myself."

Rose repressed a grin. "Such a gentleman." It had taken them a while, but they were finally back to joking around again. After the incident with her father, she'd been afraid he'd take her home for good, but he hadn't.

And they were finally back to normal.

They rounded a corner and came to a set of doors, which the Doctor opened with the sonic screwdriver. As they slid open, Rose saw a massive chamber beyond – bigger than anything she'd ever seen on an Earth space station before.

This definitely topped Platform One. And Satellite Five.

There were rows and rows of… "Are those spaceships?" she asked, excitement creeping into her voice.

He grinned back at her. "Yup." He looked around at them. "Impressive, too, for the twenty-first century."

"But this all looks way more advanced than stuff on Satellite Five, but it's nearer in the future. Well, my future."

"If you lot hadn't had the Dark Ages, you'd have been in space a full century earlier than Sputnik."

"I remember hearing that somewhere," Rose mused. "You know, that's a good point. With you around, why did we have the Dark Ages? Don't you usually stop that kind of thing?"

"Could have done, yeah. Could have stopped the Holocaust, too. Doesn't mean that I should, and you've seen why."

She winced, but there was no real reprimand in his voice. It still stung, though.

He smiled gently at her and squeezed her hand in reassurance. "You see, even if you know what you're doing, even if it will save millions of lives, sometimes you just can't interfere with the past. If I'd prevented Hitler and the Holocaust, it would have led to something much, much worse."

"Worse than six million people starving in death camps?" She blinked in disbelief.

"Yes," he said, and there was a note of finality to his voice. "And no, I won't tell you," he said for good measure. "Some things it's better to have no concept of."

"Is that…" the thought seemed to pop out of her mouth before she had time to think about it, but she hesitated.

"What?"

She smiled and shook her head. "Never mind, forgot what I was going to say. Anyway, back to the spaceships…isn't this all a bit too advanced?"

"For Earth, yeah," the Doctor replied. "But these aren't Earth design, they're alien."

"From where?"

"Don't know, don't recognize the design," he mused. "But look there, a computer terminal! How convenient."

It took him only seconds to hack past the security programs with the sonic screwdriver. Within another second, he was flipping past screens of data while Rose moved closer to the hull of one of the spaceships, examining it. "It's got a name," she smiled. "'The Dawntreader'. That's out of a book, isn't it?"

The Doctor didn't reply, but his shoulders stiffened visibly.

"Come on," she chided, "I know you think I'm a bit of a chav, but I do know how to read, thank you."

"Rose."

Her name came out of his mouth like a strangled moan. Instantly her heart leaped into her throat and she rushed back over to him. "What is it? What's wrong?" She looked down at the computer screen and saw what he'd been looking at. "Doctor," she said slowly, "what are they?"

"Daleks," he whispered. "Thousands of them. Millions, maybe."

"But you said they were gone! That one Van Statten had was the last!"

"I don't understand, either," he said, closing his eyes. When he opened them again, he stared almost unseeingly past the computer monitor.

Rose could hear the clip of shoes against the landing bay floor. "Someone's coming," she said. "Maybe we can help them. We need to warn them or something."

The Doctor's gaze sharpened and he blinked in disbelief at the monitor. His head whipped around just as he grabbed Rose and pushed her behind the nearest spaceship. "Down!" he snapped.

……………………………………………………………………..

Rose strode along the landing bay floor, her work boots clacking against the flooring. "Jack," she said to the man beside her, "how can this be happening?"

He shook his head. "I don't know, Rose. But we'll get through it."

She swallowed past a sudden lump in her throat. "You said that last time."

He stopped, forcing her to stop to turn and look at him. "And I was right."

Rose shook her head and bit her lip. "You died, Jack."

"I remember it, thanks. It hurt. A lot." He smiled ruefully. "But you brought me back, Rose."

Her eyes widened. "Oh, God, Jack…what if this is my fault?"

He frowned. "What do you mean?"

"I still don't remember everything that happened on Gamestation. I mean, I know what I did, and I can remember pieces of it now. I remember destroying the Daleks. I remember bringing you back, and I remember throwing the words 'Bad Wolf' across my own time path."

He gave a soft 'ah' of comprehension as he realized where she was going. "And you think you may have changed something else?"

"The Doctor stopped me," she said. "He stopped me from holding onto the Vortex; made me let it go. But what if I was trying to change something? What if…I don't know, I mean, I could see everything through the Vortex. I could be everywhere at any time. Jack," she said desperately, "what if I tried to change something about the Time War? What if I could see what would happen to my life, what Gallifrey would mean to me…and what if I decided to not let it burn?"

Jack was silent for a long moment, looking at her and she could see in his eyes that he was taking her seriously. She was grateful for that. After the first few times she'd traveled with him, he'd stopped patronizing her. He'd started treating her more as a partner, and less as a little sister or a girlfriend or someone that needed protected.

"You don't know for sure," Jack said finally. "And until we do, it's no use to fret over it now. We have to focus on the task at hand."

"Right," she nodded gratefully. "Let's go. I'm going to get things running in the control room. Can you take control of Sigma Station and make sure the weapon's ready?"

"Already on it. I've radioed ahead, and my ship is fueled up and ready to go."

She cupped his face and gave him a quick, chaste kiss on the lips. "You're worth fighting for, Jack. You always have been, and you always will be."

"Same goes for you."

She grinned, just a bit maniacally. "See you in hell, then."

…………………………………………………………………………

"Go to her," he said.

The Doctor looked up from the quantum readout he was studying. "What?" he asked, tugging the glasses from his face.

"Go to her," his previous self said, putting one arm through the sleeve of his green frock coat.

He missed that coat. That had been an incredibly comfortable coat.

"I don't know what you mean," he said.

The eighth Doctor smiled. Had he always looked so enigmatic? "I love her," he said simply. "From the first moment I landed in London and stumbled across her. Literally. She was lying in a pile of rubble and I tripped and fell over her."

They both laughed, and he continued, "You see, as soon as I helped her, she recognized me and tried to hide the fact she knew me."

"She had a hard time when I regenerated," the tenth Doctor said softly. "I wound up showing her photographs of previous bodies. Bit of a stupid idea, and it only made things worse at the time."

"I knew I could change my own future," Eight went on. "I know the consequences of my actions, and I know that there are probably more I'm not aware of. In fact, all this is probably my fault."

"Was it worth it?"

His previous self cocked his head slightly. "Every second of it. I've never known what love is before. Not really. Not like this. And do you know what?"

"What?"

"It still is worth it. She's worth it. Which is why I'm telling you to shift off your backside and go talk to her before all of this goes to hell in a hand basket." He grinned. "She already knows how much I love her, but she needs to know that it won't end with this body. Or the next."

He stood. "But the Daleks…"

"Are still at the edge of the solar system. We have defenses in place for this sort of thing. It won't stop them, but it will buy us time. I'll contact Sarah Jane and see what she can do with the Farristellians on her end. Go to her," he repeated, pointing to the door.

………………………………………………………………………..

"Rose!"

She heard a voice call her name and looked around wildly. The Doctor's hand was still pressing her down behind the spaceship, and she looked at him quizzically. He frowned at her and shrugged, obviously as confused as she was. But the pressure keeping her in place didn't ease.

And suddenly she saw why.

The footsteps grew louder as their owner came into view. Hidden behind the spaceship, Rose was incredibly grateful to be out of sight. If she hadn't already seen something like this…if she hadn't already known it could happen, she may have just fainted from shock

It was her.

She tore her eyes away and looked at the Doctor. He looked at her in the same instant, and there was only confusion in his eyes. Silently, he shook his head, letting her know to remain quiet and out of the way. If anything, his grip keeping her in place tightened.

Well, she wasn't about to make that mistake again. Nodding back to him that she understood, she returned her gaze to the woman standing in the hallway.

God…it really was her, wasn't it? It wasn't just someone who looked like her, it was really…it was herself standing just there.

"Rose, wait!" the voice she'd heard a moment ago said. A second later, a tall, thin man with messy brown hair and a pinstriped suit strode into view.

She turned to look at him, the other Rose – Rose Two. "I need to get to the control room," Rose-Two said quickly. "If the Daleks get past the first round of security satellites before we've anticipated, then –"

"I know, believe me, I know," the man said. "I just…I wanted…I mean…"

They stared at each other for a heartbeat before she started laughing. Wearily, he pulled her into a warm hug. "God," Rose-Two snorted. "You're such shit at goodbyes."

The man pulled Rose-Two tighter against him. "This isn't goodbye. It wasn't last time, and it won't be this time."

"I love you," she said. "I want you to know that. It wasn't just him or…the other one. It was you, too."

"I know," he said softly. "I love you, too, Rose. I always have. Even longer than I've known about, apparently."

Rose-Two started laughing again. "We are so…"

"Romantic? Shakespearian? Domestic?" He waggled his eyebrows.

"Bloody weird."

He laughed, and then pulled her in for a kiss that lasted so long Rose thought they must have both run out of breath. Who was this man? He was handsome, she'd give him that. Who was he that he'd become so important to her?

He pulled away from the kiss, leaving Rose-Two panting for breath. At least he must be a good kisser. "Rose," he said, "if we get out of this alive, if we set this whole Armageddon thing right, then some things might…change."

Rose-Two closed her eyes. "I know. I can't say I'm ready for it, but I…I knew it would happen. I just didn't anticipate being here to see it."

"No, Rose," the man said. "It might not happen at all."

She frowned. "What do you mean?"

"Just that. Remember what I told you when you saved your father? How time would rearrange itself around him being alive?"

Rose's heart stopped beating for a minute, and the Doctor's hand on her back suddenly tightened into an almost painful grip. She snuck a glance at him, and he was looking at the two people in the hallway with the same amount of cold shock that she felt.

But…that couldn't be…

Rose-Two was saying something. "…happen this time? How could it? You mean you might not regenerate?"

The man frowned slightly and shrugged. "I don't know Rose, I really don't."

"What happens to you if…if it doesn't happen? God, what happens to us? If you don't regenerate into…him…then what if you don't find me in that basement at Henrik's? What if we never meet?"

The man smiled slightly. "I've already met you before Henrik's and the Autons, you saw to that. My guess is that time would rearrange itself over that meeting instead."

"And what about you?" she prompted.

"I'll still be with you, Rose."

"That's not what I meant."

"I know," he said, his voice hoarse. "I can't tell you what you want to hear, Rose, but I can tell you…I'll always be with you. Some way or another."

Rose-Two pressed her hand to her mouth and squeezed her eyes shut against tears as the man pulled her into another hug. After what seemed like an eternity, during which Rose and the Doctor both held their breath, the two finally pulled apart at the sound of someone shouting something incomprehensible.

The man turned away and shouted something back. "I've got to go," he said to Rose-Two, who nodded. "And so do you."

She nodded again, unable to speak.

He let go of her hand and started to walk away, but then paused and turned around. "Rose?" he said. "You're worth it. You're worth every second of it."

As he walked away and his footsteps faded, Rose-Two wiped away her tears and brushed her hair back from her face.

"So are you…" she murmured. "Doctor."

………………………………………………………………………………..

TBC


	6. Chapter 6

She watched him leave, brown coat flapping behind him as he walked back to the TARDIS. She hated that it felt like goodbye. But that was life with the Doctor – one long sequence of hello and goodbye and hello again.

He was worth it.

Rose sighed and raked a hand back through her untidy hair again. She almost laughed as she remembered how self-conscious about her appearance she used to be. Even traveling with him. Especially traveling with him.

As it was now, she couldn't even remember the last time she'd actually dyed her hair. Not since before she lived on Gallifrey, really…

The intercom crackled to life again. "Director Tyler, please report to the Control Room. Repeat: Director Tyler…"

That snapped her back to reality. It had all seemed like some weird dream inside the TARDIS: herself, both versions of the Doctor, and her children together. So strange.

But that was what she got for loving a time traveler. Life no longer moved in a linear pattern.

Hell, life wasn't going to be moving in any sort of pattern unless she got her ass up to the control room. Wearily, she turned and headed towards the lift.

Daleks. It would be Daleks.

……………………………………………………………………….

The Doctor was silent, his hand still pressed against Rose's back, keeping her in place behind the spaceship. They both watched Rose-Two sigh to herself and walk away as soon as she heard the announcement.

Director Tyler? Director of what?

What the hell was going on?

"Doctor?" she whispered as softly as she could. When he didn't answer, she risked a look at him.

He was still staring at the spot Rose-Two had vacated, eyes wide but blank of expression. "Doctor," she said again, "what's going on?"

Still he didn't respond.

Rose laid a hand on his leather-clad shoulder and squeezed gently. "Doctor, please…" she pleaded.

He shook himself and turned to look at her. "I'm sorry," he said. "I don't know what's happening."

"That was me," Rose said. "That woman, that was me."

"A future you, I think," he said, and there was a strange tone to his voice.

Rose swallowed nervously before asking the second part of her question. "And…the man?"

"I didn't recognize him." He looked away from her, a small muscle in his jaw twitching.

"She called him 'Doctor'," Rose persisted. "But that's not you. That man, he wasn't you. Is it just some kind of title that's passed on?"

He shook his head. "No, just me."

"Then who was he and why'd she call him Doctor?"

He exhaled a long, slow breath and rested his forehead against the cool metal of the spaceship. "I don't know."

"You're lying."

"Rose…"

She grabbed his free hand. "Doctor, I can tell when you're lying to me and you're lying now. If you think you're protecting me from something…don't worry. I can take it."

He studied her face for a long moment, the smiled softly, though it didn't completely reach his eyes. "Rose Tyler," he said. "You really are extraordinary."

"You have no idea how true that is," said a voice from behind them.

They both shot to their feet and spun around. Rose stared, open-mouthed, at the tall man standing before them. He was leaning casually against the hull of another spaceship, looking like the world's biggest anachronism; dressed in almost Victorian garb with a long, green velvet frock coat and shoulder-length curly brown hair, he stood out in stark contrast with the sleek silver spaceships.

He caught her eye, and smiled widely at her. There was something oddly familiar about the man's clear-blue eyes and the way he smiled.

"Hello, Rose," the man said.

"Erm…hi?" she said uncertainly, glancing to the Doctor for reassurance.

The Doctor was staring at the stranger like he knew him, but wasn't happy to see him. "You shouldn't be doing this," he said, a note of warning to his voice.

The stranger cocked his head slightly. "Crabby in our old age, aren't we?"

"I've already seen too much," the Doctor said, ignoring that statement. "Just now, I saw another one. You know what can happen, what this can cause."

"Nothing worse than what's already happening," the man said, shrugging.

Rose shifted her weight and spoke up uneasily. "The Daleks, you mean?" she asked.

The Doctor and the stranger both looked at her, the stranger smiling widely. "Clever girl! But, no. Well, yes. Sort of. They're only part of it. Or maybe the cause of it, but that's what we need you," he pointed to the Doctor, "to help us figure out."

Before the Doctor had a chance to respond, they were interrupted by a triumphant yelp. "I'm a bloody genius!" the skinny man from earlier cried, leaping into view and punching the stranger on the arm in exuberance.

"Yes, I know," said the stranger dryly.

The skinny man scowled at him, tugging off a pair of eyeglasses and tucking them into his pinstriped pocket. Then he grinned widely and bit maniacally. Spreading his arms, he said, "What are we in a landing bay full of?"

"Spaceships, yes, I know." The stranger crossed his arms.

The skinny man arched his eyebrow and tilted his head. "Ah, but not just any old spaceships. These are Farristellian spaceships."

Beside Rose, the Doctor's ears perked up a bit. "Farristellian?" he echoed.

The skinny man seemed to acknowledge their presence for the first time. He stared at the Doctor, his mouth opening slightly in surprise. "Oh," he said. "Come to join the party, then?"

"Not by choice," the Doctor said.

"How'd he get here?" The skinny man asked the stranger. "And why've we got another Rose running around? No offense," he said turning to her and smiling warmly. "I mean, I wouldn't mind if the universe was full of Roses…god, that was a terrible pun, I'm sorry…regardless, lovely to have you here, really. Just…"

"Why?" the stranger finished. "The temporal flux is getting worse."

"You're telling me," the skinny man said, "if it's drawing in alternate versions of the TARDIS and me…oi, where were you lot headed?"

"Colony of Marius," the Doctor said, frowning.

The skinny man frowned. "Funny, I don't remember going there."

"You don't remember a lot of things," the stranger said, raising an eyebrow.

"Well, neither does he," the skinny man nodded his head at the Doctor.

"Remember what?" the Doctor interjected.

The skinny man blinked at him, then grinned. "Oh, you know. The usual things you forget. Wife and kids, that sort of thing."

The Doctor stared. "I haven't got a wife and kids."

The skinny man raised both his eyebrows. "Yeah, that's what I thought."

"I don't have a wife and kids," the Doctor repeated.

The skinny man pointed to the stranger. "He has."

Rose felt the Doctor's hand go rigid in her own. He looked at the stranger as if he'd suddenly grown another arm out of that green frock coat. "How the hell have you got a wife and kids?"

The stranger looked a bit sheepish. "Well…"

"Oi!" Rose shouted, stepping out from behind the Doctor. "I don't care who's got a wife and bloody kids! Anyone remember the big mess of Daleks out there?" She pointed towards the edge of the landing bay. "Remember? Daleks? Big ugly pepper pots with a nasty temper and big pointy laser guns on 'em?"

The three of them stared at her. The skinny one shoved his hands inside his brown coat pockets and looked at the Doctor. "You can't leave. We're locked in here now."

"But the potential paradox…" the Doctor sighed.

The stranger shrugged. "In about twelve hours it won't matter any longer. Something's gone wrong with the Time War. It's being rewritten, but not correctly. There's a temporal flux in the midst of that Dalek fleet and it's not only going to bring about the destruction of Earth, it'll bring about the end of everything."

The skinny man nodded his agreement. "We need you." He looked at Rose. "Both of you. I don't know how this will rewrite our history when it's done, but what does that matter as long as we have a history, eh?"

The Doctor looked from them to Rose and back again. "Why her?" he asked, voice tight.

The other two exchanged a look. "Now…that's a bit of a long story, there." The skinny man asked, wincing slightly.

…………………………………………………………………………

The doors slid shut behind Rose as she stepped into the Control Room. Not for the first time, Rose wondered why they couldn't have designed the place with a bit more flare. It could be more Spock and a bit less haphazard. As it was, she'd take anything above Satellite Five/Gamestation.

"Right," she said, stepping forward. "How are we doing, Diana?"

Diana Goddard, former assistant to Henry Van Statten, looked up from her computer and shook her head. "The fleet's got something blocking our sensor equipment. We can get only the roughest visual data."

"Any word from the Prime Ambassador?"

"Not yet," Goddard said. "But there's a United Nations shuttle landing in two minutes with Harriet Jones on board."

"Right, get me a channel to the Weapon Station," Rose said.

"Open."

"Jack, can you read me?" She asked, raising her voice slightly.

"Loud and clear, Rose," Jack Harkness's voice crackled back over the radio.

She bit her lip in thought. "How's it looking?"

"Not great," Jack admitted. "I don't think we're going to have enough fire power to wipe out more than a third of the fleet. That if we're lucky."

"Shit," Rose cursed. "Any way to boost power?"

"Working on it, I'll let you know as soon as we have an answer. Weapon Station out."

There was a beeping from Goddard's consol and she pressed a button. "Incoming message from the Prime Ambassador."

"Visual?" Rose asked.

"Voice only," Goddard replied.

"Director Tyler," came Sarah-Jane's smooth voice over the radio. "The Farristellian Consulate wishes me to notify you that they're extending any and all financial and material support they can muster. At this time, though, a similar attack is happening around Farristell, and the consulate is unable to offer any military support."

Rose closed her eyes and ran through every curse word she could think of in her head. "Understood," she said. "Switch to private line," she said to Goddard, as she picked up a receiver from the desk.

Goddard nodded. "Sarah-Jane? We're on a private line."

"Goodness, Rose, are you okay? Are the children alright? Can you get them to safety?"

Rose smiled, swallowing past a sudden lump in her throat. "We're all okay, yeah. Got a bit of situation, though, aside from the Daleks."

"What do you mean?" Sarah-Jane's voice sharpened.

"We're out of time," Rose said, using their private code for 'Something's Gone Wrong With Time And Only Doctor Can Fix It Because We Stupid Apes Have No Bloody Clue What He's Gone And Done'.

Sarah-Jane sighed audibly. "How bad is it?"

Rose nearly laughed. "Take as bad as it could possibly be –"

"-and add another suitcase of bad on top of it," Sarah-Jane finished, a note of wearily resigned amusement in her voice. "What can I do?"

"Nothing, Sarah-Jane. I don't even know what's going on. The Daleks are the least of our worries, and until he figures it out, we're just buying him time." Rose rubbed the bridge of her nose.

There was a pause. "I think I can help with that. Give me an hour."

"The Daleks will be inside our secondary defense ring by then," Rose pointed out. "That'll leave them only ten minutes from Torchwood and another five from Weapon Station."

"Trust me, Rose," she said.

Rose smiled. "I do, Sarah-Jane. I do."

…………………………………………………………………..

Rose smiled gingerly at the young girl with pigtails. The little girl smiled back, then ran off to hide behind the boy that was apparently her older brother. The boy sighed in exasperation and ushered the little girl into a different room.

Rose looked around and tried to wrap her head around what was going on. They were inside a TARDIS, but it wasn't her TARDIS. Definitely not the same ship. This one was very smart on the inside, almost like a cathedral, only with space-age technology built in. It was absolutely beautiful.

She shifted her weight in the overstuffed Victorian chair. The Doctor had all but told her to sit still and stay quiet. He'd promised her an explanation once it was all over with, but she was beginning to feel that the explanation would never come.

The two men they'd met earlier stood around the TARDIS control panel, pointing at different bits and murmuring to each other. Eight and Ten, they'd told her to call them. When she'd asked them why, Ten had shrugged and said it was her idea.

The other her, she was guessing. Rose-Two.

God, her head hurt.

Gently, she eased herself out of the chair, careful not to attract the Doctor's attention. She couldn't just sit still, though, like a good little girl. That just wasn't in her nature.

Rose crossed her arms, wishing she'd worn a jacket with her t-shirt this time. It wasn't chilly in the TARDIS, but she felt cold nonetheless. She risked a glance back over at the three men. Who were the other two? One had a TARDIS, so didn't that mean he was another Time Lord?

He'd mentioned something about the Time War, too…the war in which the Doctor's people had all been killed. But he'd said something had gone wrong, and he was here with his TARDIS, so…he had to be another Time Lord, right?

So then who was the other one? Ten? Rose-Two had called him 'Doctor'.

There was a doorway a little to her left. She could see flickering candlelight inside. Intrigued, she walked closer to it, and slid silently inside.

It was a small little alcove of a room, with a sort of mantelpiece decorated in candles and what looked like family photographs. Some of the photos were old-fashioned, some were modern, and some looked like little holograms in frames. Appropriate for a Time Lord and family, she supposed.

Looking at them, she saw several of the two children she'd met earlier. Also quite a bit of the man in the frock coat – Eight – and what looked like Rose-Two. Was that a wedding picture, there? She'd gotten married to a different Time Lord?

Nice dress, though, she thought, picking up the picture and looking at it. Rose-Two looked so genuinely happy, it made her smile. But still…she couldn't imagine time traveling with anyone but the Doctor, even if she did fall in love with someone else.

Was this not her future, then? Was it some sort of…alternate reality or parallel dimension or something like that?

She set the wedding photo back on in its place and looked at the rest of the pictures. There was one of Rose-Two with Ten. They were both grinning and holding hands. Rose-Two's hair was a bit blonder, like her own hair right now, but it was shorter, framing her face.

If Rose-Two was married to Eight – to Mr. Victorian Elegance out there – then what did pinstriped Ten have to do with anything? That conversation she and the Doctor had eavesdropped on earlier…it had seemed that the two of them had some sort of romantic past.

Rose sighed. Maybe this alternate version of herself was a bit more like her father. Duffel coats and that.

That was a depressing thought.

There was some sort of book on the end of the mantel. It looked like an album of sorts. Curiously, Rose picked it up and began to look through it.

She blinked. There, on the first page, was a picture of herself and the Doctor. She remembered this photo – it was just after Platform One. They'd gone back to London and he'd asked if she still wanted to travel with him (of course she'd told him yes). They went out for chips and then Rose had bought a cheap little camera, saying that if she was going on "the trip of a lifetime", then it should be documented.

She remembered asking a random stranger to take their picture, as they stood in front of the London Eye (their first date, she'd called it jokingly) pretending to be tourists. The Doctor had laughed, and it was the first time she remembered hearing him really laugh.

Like he was happy.

Just below the photograph was a note, written in a handwriting she recognized as her own. It said "Our first date. He still owes me for the chips."

Flipping through the pages, there were more photographs of her and the Doctor, some of which she recognized, others she didn't. Then there were pictures of her and the man in the pinstriped suit. And in the back of the book were photos of her, Eight, and those two children.

Slowly, she went back through the pages, reading the notes in the margins. It began to piece together a story; one she would never have believed if it hadn't made a sort of sense. It was impossible, strange, and illogical, but…somehow it just seemed to fit.

They were all the same man. Eight, Ten, and the Doctor. They were one and the same.

They were the Doctor.

Rose closed her eyes, feeling weak. It couldn't be true, but it had to be. It was the only thing that made sense with everything that had been going on; everything that had been said earlier. She knew that you could stumble across different versions of yourself, cross your own timeline, as the Doctor put it.

They'd done it back in 1987, and they'd obviously done it again, though unintentionally.

But how? How could he be the same man when he looked totally different?

"Rose?"

She looked up at the Doctor's voice. He must've seen something in her face, because his expression changed. "Rose…" he began.

"So, then," she swallowed. "What number are you?"

………………………………………………………………………

TBC


	7. Chapter 7

"Slave circuits? That's brilliant!" Eight cried.

Ten grinned at him and opened a radio channel to the Control Room. "Rose?"

"Yeah?" her voice came back, a little tense.

"We've got an idea. I've got an idea. We've…hell, you know what I mean." Ten pushed his glasses higher on his nose. "I'm slaving together all the spaceships in the landing bay. With their Farristellian shielding, they should be able to pierce the hull of a Dalek ship."

"Won't they be expecting that?"

Eight shook his head. "Not immediately. They won't expect a kamikaze attack until their well inside our defense net. Now, after the first two or three attacks, they'll be able to recalibrate their shields, but…" he tapped a few switches "…I can send out a shortwave EMP burst that'll knock their computers offline long enough to take out a few more ships."

"That's not much," Rose said.

"Every little bit helps," Eight argued.

"Alright, then. Any thoughts on the other matter?"

"Not yet," Ten sighed. "It has to be the Emperor Dalek, he's the only one with enough power to manipulate time on his own. It's what he was designed for."

"But we don't know what he's done to alter the timeline," Eight continued. "And until we figure out what it is, there's no way to stop him."

"Right, I'll be down there in a tick. There's a UN shuttle landing soon."

"See you then, love," Eight said, switching the radio off.

Ten looked around the consol room. "Where'd the other one get to?" He looked over at Eight, who shrugged and brought up another screen full of data to sift through.

……………………………………………………………….

Rose and the Doctor stared at each other, Rose still clutching the photo album. "If that one's Eight and the other one's Ten, what's that make you then, Doctor?"

He opened his mouth, then closed it again, thinking over his words. After a long moment of silence, he looked down at the floor. "Nine," he said softly.

Rose set the album back in place and took a deep breath, leaning against the wall for support. "So…I was right? It's you? Them, I mean…they're you?"

"Yes," he admitted, still looking at the floor.

"Have you always done this?"

He frowned, and looked up at her. "Done what?"

She waved a hand. "This…changing bodies like this. Have you always done it?"

"Sort of, yeah." His shoulders shifted uncomfortably. "It's a Time Lord thing."

Suddenly, for no real reason, she felt a surge of anger. "Care to explain that, then? Or am I just too stupid of an ape to understand?"

His mouth tightened. "It's difficult to –"

"Right, then," she interrupted, brushing past him. "Obviously you're going with Option B, so…" She marched back into the consol room, the Doctor on her heels.

"You, then." Rose pointed to the man in pinstripes, who stared at her in confusion. "Which one are you? Ten? Right, explain this please. And use small words, since I'm such a stupid ape."

"Rose," the Doctor began, but Ten cut across him.

"Ah," Ten said. "That's right. She doesn't know about regeneration yet."

"'Yet'?" Rose said, her voice nearly a growl.

"You never told her?" Eight said, half paying attention to the conversation, and half engrossed in some screen full of math equations.

Ten shifted uncomfortably, just as the Doctor had done a moment ago. Rose felt lightheaded again. "Well," he said, "she sort of…found out the hard way, I guess you could say."

That got Eight's attention. "You just regenerated on her without explaining anything? I mean, I know I've done that before, I just…I wouldn't have expected to do that to Rose."

Ten scowled. "Well, it's not like I meant to, but she had to go and swallow the whole Time Vortex."

Rose blinked. "The what?"

But the Doctor - her Doctor, Nine, whatever – took a step forward, a stricken look on his face. "She did WHAT?!"

Ten groaned. "Look it all turned out right in the end. She saved my life, I saved hers, happy ending, all's well that ends well, eh?"

"So you did just regenerate on her without explaining anything," Eight pointed out, slightly amused.

"Sort of, yeah."

Eight snorted. "Bet that went over well. Look! I did it!"

Ten blinked. "Did what?"

He pointed happily at a monitor. "Got the slave circuit to work. Ships are launching now. I can hide them from the Dalek sensors for about three minutes, and then we need to start the attack."

"Brilliant!"

"I know."

"That's great and all," Rose said, "but does anyone care to explain what the hell regeneration is?"

"Quantum phsyics," said another voice. They all turned to see Rose-Two enter the TARDIS door. As she walked over to the consol, Eight met her halfway and she gave him a brief but tight hug.

Rose blinked. "What?"

Rose-Two grinned. "Quantum physics. See, the Doctor's a bit like the TARDIS on the inside. His consciousness isn't exactly on the same plain of existence as ours. Like how the inside of the TARDIS is in one place while the outside is in another. Only, the Doctor isn't as far outside his physical self as the inside of the TARDIS is from the blue Police box. He's more connected."

"Ooo, good analogy," Ten murmured.

Rose-Two squeezed Ten's hand affectionately. "When the Doctor sustains a fatal injury to his physical form, his body rearranges itself at the subatomic level. It has to do with superstring physics. Inside each atom is a subatomic partical and inside that is a vibrating string of energy. By changing the vibrational patterns of the strings, a Time Lord can pretty much build themselves a new body."

Nine and Ten both gaped at Rose-Two like fish out of water.

Rose tilted her head, taking this information in. Obviously her other self understood it, so that meant she should be able to. It did make sense, in a way, even if she wasn't exactly sure what the hell superstring physics was supposed to be. "And…it doesn't kill him because his mind's outside his body at the time?"

"Pretty much," Rose-Two said. "He changes a bit everytime, loses parts of his personality, gains other bits. He can't influence it directly, but I think the process plays a bit on his subconscious. That part's like anyone else, though. We change, too, us humans. We just don't do it on the outside."

"Tellin' me," Rose said, gesturing to Rose-Two. "Blimey. How'd I get so smart?"

"You get married to a Time Lord, pop out two half-Time Lord babies, then go to live on a planet full of Time Lords," Rose-Two snorted. "It sort of rubs off on you."

Rose and Nine exchanged looks. "'Babies'?" they echoed simultaneously.

Eight started laughing, and Rose-Two elbowed Ten in the ribs. "Oi," she said to him, "we were so cute, weren't we?"

"But," Nine said weakly, gesturing to Rose, "we're not…"

Eight laughed harder, pounding his fist against the consol. Ten and Rose-Two giggled, with more elbow-poking. "Blimey," Ten said, "I'm such an idiot!"

"You're telling me," Rose-Two snorted.

Eight stopped laughing long enough to look at a monitor that had just pinged. "There's a shuttle approaching, Rose, is that the one you were waiting for?"

Rose-Two looked back over her shoulder. "UN one? Yeah. I need to go meet it."

"I've almost finished the compression ratio for the EMP burst," Eight said to her, "so I'll stay here and finish that."

"I'll come with you," said Ten.

"No," Rose-Two shook her head. "You'll cause a scene."

He blinked at her, taking off his glasses. "What do you mean?"

She leveled a hard look at him. "Harriet Jones is on that shuttle."

A cold look came over Ten's face. "Still alive, is she?"

"One of the first to receive medical treatment from the Farristellians, thanks," Rose said, "to you and that little health scare you engineered."

"You're never angry with me over that!" Ten snapped. "You know what she did!"

"Yes, and no," Rose-Two held up a hand preventing Ten from interrupting her, "I don't agree with what she did. The ship was retreating and it was wrong of her to fire. But neither," she pointed a finger in Ten's chest, "do I think it's your place to lay judgement on her."

"Then who's is it?" he said acidly.

"Not," she repeated forcefully, "yours."

She turned and walked towards the TARDIS door, leaving Ten to stare angrily after her. Beside Rose, the Doctor shifted like he wanted to go after her. She looked at him as he watched Rose-Two leave.

She had a lot of questions, but he must have a lot as well, she reckoned. That other version of herself was married to him, after all. Well the other versions of him.

God, that was weird. They were married?

And kids! Those two kids must be theirs! She wanted to go see them again, to look at them closer, see if they looked anything like her.

She looked at the Doctor again and squeezed his hand gently. "Go on," she said softly. "Go talk to her."

He turned his head to her and lifted an eyebrow. "If it doesn't matter what we learn here," she said, "if it's all just going to change anyway, then what's the harm in knowing? You've got questions, I can tell. Go ask her."

"You'll be alright here?"

"Me?" she smiled. "Yeah. Just going to go spend some time with the family."

His lip twitched. "Don't start any pillow fights."

Rose grinned and let go of the Doctor's hand. He turned to go, but then paused and turned back to her. She looked up at him quizzically, and then – quick as could be – he bent down and pressed a kiss to her lips.

It was so fast, and he was already walking away, but Rose felt her lips burn where his had touched.

She cleared her throat, becoming aware that Eight was staring at her with an amused expression on his face. "What're you looking at?"

………………………………………………………………………..

"Rose!"

"Oh, for Christ's sake, Doctor, I am not having this discussion ag – oh," she said, turning around. "It's you."

The ninth Doctor – the one she'd first fallen in love with, caught up to her, panting slightly. "Can I…would you mind if I walked with you? The other two can handle things in there."

"I…yeah, that's fine," she said, brushing a piece of hair behind her ear.

Up ahead of them, they could see the entrance to the landing bay opening. "Force field," she explained. "More Farristellian technology."

"Earth has an alliance with them, I take it?" He walked shoulder to shoulder with her, his fingers twitching like he wanted to reach out and take her hand, but he didn't.

Rose nodded. "Yeah. Jack and I saved their planet a while back, sort of by accident, but as a result they sought out Earth to give us thanks. Turns out the sort of wheat they grow over in the States is the answer to a world hunger problem the Farristellians were facing. So in exchange for agriculture and some mineral mining in the asteroid belt past Mars, we get advanced medicine and technology."

"Who's Jack? You sound as if I should know him."

Rose paused. "Been to London lately?"

"Just left there. 1987."

"Oh," she said softly. "I'm sorry about that, by the way."

He smiled. "You've told me that already."

"Though it is more your fault than mine," she added.

"What?"

She turned to him and arched an eyebrow. "You? Time Lord. Me? Stupid Ape. You never did explain the rules of time travel to me, you just sort of expected me to know. How would I have known anything? Only thing I knew about time travel were a few Star Trek repeats I watched as a kid because Mum had a thing for Captain Kirk."

"She would," he snorted. "Me? I'd be concerned about the Space AIDS."

Rose laughed. "Still, I am sorry."

He stopped and she stopped with him. Slowly, he lifted a hand and cupped her face in his palm, the same as he had done back in 1987. "I know," he said softly. "I'm sorry, too."

Suddenly, she felt an overwhelming sadness and loss for this man…this version of the man she loved. The one version she couldn't keep.

"Rose?" He lifted a thumb and pushed away a tear. It was such a familiar gesture, the brush of his thumb across her cheekbone. It was one he made all the time…the version of him that she'd married. But she'd never been that close with this one.

But, oh, how she'd wanted to.

And she would lose him again. She couldn't keep him, she knew. Even if the timeline altered, he'd be different. If she were with him again, it wouldn't be the same. She'd have lost that first joy of discovery, that first wide-eyed wonder at the universe he showed her.

It was too much. Despite herself, she began to cry. He pulled her into his arms, and the familiar scent of his leather jacket only made her cry harder.

"Rose…" he said into her hair.

"I loved you," she managed between so I loved you so much and you just left me. You just changed on me and it was never right after that. You left me."

"I'm here now."

……………………………………………………………………..

Eight had finished the calculations on the EMP and the signal was prepped and ready to be released. Jack had called in with an update on Weapon Station. Apparently they'd been able to double the power output, but it still wasn't going to be enough.

Ten sighed and rubbed the space on his nose where his glasses had been resting.

Between the kamikaze spaceships, the defense satellite arrays, and the Weapon Station, they might – might – be able to whittle the Dalek fleet down to a fourth of its size by the time it got within firing range of Earth. But that was discounting any tricks the Emperor Dalek had up his sleeve…and Davros, if Davros wasn't dead already by this point in the War.

Or had the Emperor Dalek already turned and killed Davros? His memories were so fuzzy when it came to the actual details of the war. And now they were getting worse as the temporal flux grew.

What was causing that flux, anyway?

Eight moved over to Rose, talking to her, trying to make her comfortable. As comfortable as one could be for the end of the universe. There was nothing she could really do at this point. If it came down to the station being invaded, he was sure she could help put up a hell of a fight, but other than that…the other Rose had more resources resources at her disposal.

And there was no way in hell he was going to let either of them absorb the Time Vortex again. He wasn't sure either he or Rose would survive another contact with it. Hell, he wasn't sure if the universe would survive, but that was beside the point.

He thought of Rose with a pang of anger. He'd thought she understood what he'd done about Harriet Jones; why he'd been so angry. He'd really thought she still saw things the way he did. It hurt to find out she didn't.

He didn't like feeling flawed in Rose's perception.

Sighing, he leaned against the consol. No, he probably shouldn't have snapped at Rose like that. She did have a point, a good one, too. He'd made plenty of mistakes on his own to have come down on Harriet Jones so hard. And no, it wasn't really his right to decide her punishment, but…after all the times he'd sacrificed to save that stupid little planet, to have them self-destruct their own future because of xenophobia had been an intolerable thought. He'd had to do something.

Wearily, he flipped open a computer screen and patched the TARDIS into the landing bay cameras so he could watch Harriet Jones's shuttle land. He really should go out and apologize to her.

Well…talk to her, at least. Let her know he was here to help, not here for her head.

Something on the screen caught his eye and he zoomed in. The previous version of himself – the ninth one – was holding a crying Rose. Oh, no, what had he gone and said? Obviously something stupid to make her so upset. The ninth version of himself hadn't been all that great at talking to women, especially not human women. Especially not Rose.

He flipped on the audio at a low volume so he could hear what they were saying.

"I loved you so much and you just left me," Rose was sobbing, face buried in black leather. "You just changed on me and it was never right after that. You left me."

Oh.

………………………………………………………………………………..

TBC


	8. Chapter 8

For once, the Doctor did exactly what Rose needed him to do.

He just stood there, holding her, letting her sob into his shoulder and blurt out all sorts of things that didn't make any sort of coherent sense. The familiar leather smell of his jacket made things worse at first, but after a bit it seemed to have a calming effect on her. It was just another sensation – another aspect of him, like the green velvet that always smelled of cinnamon for some strange reason. Leather, cinnamon, and that clean crisp linen smell that had accompanied the pinstriped suit.

She found herself smiling and pulled away from him, wiping her tears with her shirtsleeve. God, she was still in that awful jumpsuit she'd been wearing to repair the S75. Oh, well. Engine grease and leather went together.

"You alright?" the Doctor asked, his familiar northern accent making her smile again.

Rose nodded. "Yeah, sorry. It's just…" she shrugged.

He swallowed and looked away from her. "It couldn't have been easy for you."

That made her laugh. He looked at her curiously. Rose waved a hand dismissively. "It still isn't," she snorted. "If it was easy, it wouldn't be you."

"Rose, I –"

"I'm human," she interrupted him. "But I fell in love with a Time Lord. Not just an alien man that's got a dozen times my lifespan. That would be complicated enough on its own. But I fell in love with a man who travels time and alters history and lives in a thousand different places at once."

"Well, that's a bit of an overstatement."

"Shut it. Point is," she continued, "it's not easy. It was never easy, and it's never going to be easy, but I deal with it because I love you. I love you, Doctor, and I'm selfish, and I won't give you up for anything, I don't care how complicated it gets. The you that I married understands that because he feels the same. You feel the same."

He stared at her for a long time, almost looking like he was going to argue, but logic won out in the end. There wasn't any way he could deny his feelings for Rose. Not now.

She stepped forward and took a hold of his jacket lapels and looked up at him. Not quite expectantly, but invitingly.

Slowly, he lifted a hand to the side of her face, and gently tipped her head upwards. His head tilted down and his lips brushed hers briefly and softly. With a small sigh, her mouth parted slightly and his lips returned to hers, pressing more insistently. By the time their tongues met, Rose had lost her ability to stand and he was supporting her weight against him.

A discreet cough behind them brought them back to reality. They parted, but the Doctor still kept an arm around Rose's waist, supporting her slightly. Good thing, too…that kiss had made her a bit weak in the knees.

"So sorry," said Harriet Jones, "am I interrupting?"

……………………………………………………………………………….

"The Daleks are inside the first defense ring," came Jack's voice over the radio.

Rose stood to the side as Ten's long-fingered hands flew over the TARDIS controls. Eight was busy rewiring something to a secondary consol, and she looked over at him in time to see him jump back and yelp as the controls sparked.

Good to see some things didn't change.

Ten tugged on a chain and pulled down a computer monitor, on which there was a graphics display of little colored blips. The green blips were moving towards the blue blips, and then there were red blips and then some of the blue blips were blinking and fading.

"It's working so far," Ten mused, "but we'd better come up with something else, fast. They're not far outside Jupiter's orbit. The defense satellites' gravity fields are working to slow down the Dalek engines, but they won't stop the fleet."

"If we can buy Jack time to get Weapon Station up and running, it'll be worth it," Eight commented.

"What's on this Weapon Station?" Rose asked.

Eight pulled at a loose wire, which sparked. He winced and replaced the wire. "Ever heard of a Delta Wave?"

Rose shook her head and was about to ask for an explanation when she looked over to Ten, who had frozen with a look of horror on his face. He punched a button on the consol with more force than Rose thought was necessary. "Jack?" he demanded, his voice containing an edge that made her shiver slightly.

"What, Doctor?" Jack's voice came back, sounding a little hurried.

"A question about this weapon…"

"I've got it covered, Doctor," Jack cut him off. "The Delta Burst is focused through a series of trillium lenses."

Ten bit his lip. "It'll work, you think?"

"Like sunlight through a magnifying glass."

"Daleks are a lot smarter than ants, Jack," Ten said. "And this is the same Emperor Dalek we faced back on Gamestation. He'll be expecting something like this."

"Got a better plan?"

Ten sighed. "Not yet, no. TARDIS out."

Eight looked at Ten with a knowing gaze. "You've tried this before, I take it?"

"Yeah," Ten said. "Didn't exactly work out as planned. Damn it!" He ran a hand through his hair, making it stand on end. "If only I could figure out why. Or how. How did they survive? Rose destroyed them. I saw it happen."

"I what?" Rose squeaked.

He waved a dismissive hand. "Well, it was you but you had all the power of the Time Vortex running through you at the time. You basically picked the Dalek fleet apart atom by atom."

"Oh, well done," Eight grinned. "But we don't have the luxury of that option, sadly," he sighed, standing and brushing off his hands. "I'm not about to let you – any version of you – absorb the Time Vortex and kill yourself, even if we could access it."

Ten frowned. "What do you mean, even if we could?"

Eight stared at him. "The Eye of Harmony," he said, as though explaining to a two-year old why the sky was blue.

"What about the Eye of Harmony?" Ten took a step forward. "What happened to it?"

Eight blinked. "It's inactive. Gone. Kaput."

……………………………………………………………………………

Torchwood Emergency Protocols dictated that all auxiliary power to non-essential systems be rerouted to primary systems like shields and weapons. Thus, it was a bit warm and stuffy in the control room, and Rose wiped at a bit of brow sweat in irritation. She'd already unbuttoned and tied the top of her coveralls about her waist, and had nearly sweated through the white tank top she wore.

Of course, running around like a chicken with her head cut off trying to coordinate a massive space battle wasn't helping.

"I know what they said, but they've got to get that secondary satellite repaired," she spat angrily, flipping a switch on the panel in front of Diana. "Jack?"

"We're ready, but they're not in firing range yet," Jack said.

"Doctor?"

There was a muffled reply. Rose leaned over the consol and looked down at the Doctor, who was sprawled beneath another array of controls, hard at work with the sonic screwdriver. "What was that?" she asked.

He removed a bundle of wiring from in between his teeth. "I said, I'm trying, but they're working almost twice as fast as me." He sat up and removed his leather jacket.

"There's three of you."

"And the Daleks are how many?"

"Point taken," she said, sighing as he lay back again and went back to work.

Harriet Jones had paused mid-sentence in conversation with Diana Goddard. Rose caught her eye, and Harriet shook her head in disbelief. "I'm still not used to this," the older woman said, nodding her head at the Doctor.

"Welcome to my world," Rose snorted. "I don't think I'll ever understand."

The control room door slid open and the tenth Doctor ran up to Rose, breathless, his hair disheveled and standing on end. "Rose," he gasped.

"What?" she snapped, her irritation with him flaring up again as she noticed Harriet Jones taking an involuntary step backwards.

"Gamestation," he breathed, ignoring the tone of her voice. He gripped her arm urgently. "Rose, you have to tell me what happened on Gamestation. Everything you can remember."

She opened her mouth to reply, but noticed the other Doctor looking at them curiously. "Office," she said, pointing over her shoulder to the lift. "Now."

……………………………………………………………………………………

Rose sipped the cup of tea the Doctor handed her gratefully. "So what now?" she asked.

He shrugged, but there was a tightness around his mouth that she recognized, despite it being a very different mouth than the one she was used to. He straightened his green coat and ran a hand through his curly hair. "I don't exactly know," he said in that beautifully cultured voice of his, bringing up the holographic display.

Rose looked at it in awe. "You see," he continued, "something's gone wrong, terribly wrong with time and space. Dimensional lines are blurring, and the time stream is folding in on itself. If it continues, then…it's like a jumper with a thread loose. One good tug, and it all unravels."

She stared at him. "That doesn't sound very reassuring."

He made an effort at a smile. "I'm sorry, I wish I could tell you with certainty what's going to happen, but I can't."

"S'alright," she smiled. "You'll think of something."

A real smile spread across his face. "You're so confident, Rose Tyler. And you don't even know me."

She set the teacup down and walked over to him. "Yeah, I do. You might have changed, but you're still the same person, inside. I can see that. The Doctor – the one I travel with – he's been hurt a lot by something. He rarely talks about it, but he's lost so much, and that's caused him to hide a lot of himself away. But it's still there. You're still there, in him, I think."

The Doctor stared at her, a strange look on his face, and Rose looked away, blushing. "Sorry," she mumbled, "that probably sounded like a load of silly rubbish."

She started to walk away, but he caught her hand. "No," he said softly, "it didn't."

Rose bit her lip as he pressed the palm of his hand to her cheek. It was warm and soft, not calloused and rough like the hand she was used to, but it still felt the same in a way. It felt just as right. "Thank you, Rose," he whispered, and she could hear the catch in his voice, and it made her heart leap into her throat.

She thought he might kiss her, but there was a beeping from the TARDIS controls, and they separated. He looked at something on a small screen, and his eyes hardened. "Rose," he said, "would you do me a favor?"

"Yes, Doctor?"

He looked up at her and gave her a tight smile. "Go and check on the children? I don't trust their silence." He gestured towards a door to the back of the main room.

It was clearly a dismissal of the For-Your-Own-Good variety, but Rose's curiosity about the children overcame her and she nodded. "Alright, yeah."

"Thank you, darling," he said absently.

Rose smirked. At least the other her had him well-trained.

……………………………………………………………………………………

"They're through the primary defense ring," his former self said.

The Doctor groaned. "Yeah, I know," he said into his borrowed headset. "They've also adapted to the Farristellian shielding. The remaining ships are useless."

"Well," came the other's reply through the radio, "they're not much of a barricade, but they're something."

Was he ever really that optimistic? Seemed like a lifetime ago.

Oh, wait. It was.

He sat up and switched off the sonic screwdriver, wiping angrily at sweat that dripped into his eye. What idiot engineer hadn't considered air conditioning as part of the primary life support system? He'd taken off his coat already, but found himself wishing he'd worn a lighter jumper as he pushed up the red sleeves past his elbows.

"Where did these defenses come from, anyway?" he asked no one in particular. "They seem specifically designed to combat Daleks."

"They were originally designed by a team of Torchwood engineers after they obtained data concerning Van Statten's Dalek," Diana Goddard said, her high heels clipping along the metal decking.

The Doctor blinked. "But you had that facility filled in with concrete and all the records destroyed."

She looked over at him. "Yeah, that's what I thought. I'd forgotten about Adam."

"Adam? Oh." He closed his eyes. "That git. Where is he now?"

"Dead," she said evenly. He looked at her. "He went in for Farristellian medical treatment, but there were complications. Something to do with a neural implant, I'm not exactly sure what."

Great. Perfect. Fantastic. More guilt on his shoulders, because he just couldn't get enough of that, could he? Granted, it really was Adam's own damn fault for being such a selfish, greedy little bugger, but still…he'd been right about one thing. The Doctor had been in charge, and had blundered it. He should've kept a closer eye on the kid.

Well, they couldn't all be Rose, could they?

"Miss Goddard? I've just received word that Ambassador Smith is on board and on her way up," said a young man at a communications station.

The Doctor half-heard this as he stood, brushing off his black trousers. He looked up just as the lift doors opened, and his jaw dropped.

Sarah-Jane. It was Sarah-Jane Smith.

Her gaze darted around the control room, glossing over him. "Where's Rose?" she asked Diana. "I must speak with her at once."

The Doctor stared. She looked amazing! He did a quick calculation in his head from the year he'd dropped her off in. She should be…well, with the average human lifespan of her generation, she should be dead by now. Good-looking corpse.

Farristell. Of course. Their medical technology – if she'd received any of it, of course she was in perfect health.

"She's in her office," Diana replied, "with one of the Doctors."

Sarah-Jane blinked. "With – what?"

Diana shifted her weight uneasily and sort of half-nodded at the Doctor. "Well, she's with one in her office, there's another one, and apparently there's one still in the TARDIS. Something about a time anomaly, I think."

"Time flux," he interjected, smiling widely when Sarah-Jane's head snapped in his direction.

She stared and gaped. "D…Doctor?" she managed.

He grinned and waved. "Hello."

………………………………………………………………………………………..

Rose waved her hand over the lock panel on her office door, ensuring they wouldn't be disturbed. Not that it would stop a sonic screwdriver, but she thought the other Doctor would get the hint.

"Now," she said, "what's going on?"

The Doctor shrugged out of his suit jacket and loosened his tie. "Bloody hot in here."

"Central air's on the fritz. Blame the Daleks. Now, what the hell is going on? What's this about Gamestation?"

He leaned against her desk and folded his arms. "Remember how Jack and I said this was the same fleet that attacked us in 200100?"

She frowned. "You said that, yeah, but I don't see how."

"It was the life-readings we took. The pattern reads partially human," he explained.

"I don't understand…they were destroyed, weren't they? You destroyed them."

"Yes," he said, "they were destroyed, I thought, but somehow one of them must've survived…hold on." He stood upright, staring at her. "You said I destroyed them?"

She stared back at him. "That's what you told me happened. I don't remember any of it. Why?"

"The Eye of Harmony," he said. "Something's happened to it. Something's gone wrong."

Rose shook her head. "I don't understand, Doctor."

He chewed on his bottom lip for a moment. "I know, Rose, I'm sorry."

She sucked in a breath, trying to keep a hold of her sanity. "Doctor, please…what's going on?"

The Doctor took a step forward, standing directly in front of her. He placed a hand to either side of her face, and tilted her head upwards. "I'm going to find out, Rose. Just hold still, and try to relax. I need to find out what happened on Gamestation, and you're the only one here that knows."

"But…you were there…" she said weakly, closing her eyes.

She could feel him in her mind, sifting through her memories. Scenes flashed before her eyes – their wedding on Gallifrey, the eighth Doctor asking her to waltz in the streets of Vienna on a hot summer night, the ninth Doctor taking her hand and telling her to run, the births of her children - and she gasped, but he held her firmly, reassuringly.

And at last he found what he was looking for, and Rose cried out, clapping a hand to her mouth in horror. He withdrew quickly from her mind and his hands fell away from her face. Rose felt cold with shock, sinking slowly to the floor as the implications of what she'd seen hit her.

"Oh, Rose," the Doctor said, his voice strained and hoarse, "that's just it. I wasn't there. It wasn't me." He closed his eyes. "I was wrong. Something happened to the TARDIS. This isn't my reality at all. Something is pulling alternate dimensions together; cramming them into one, unraveling and reweaving them into something different. This is a different world. A different universe."

"I…died," Rose gasped, looking up at him. "I can feel it. I remember what it felt like."

He pulled her to her feet and held her tightly. "Rose…I'm so sorry."

"He saved me," she said against his shoulder. "My Doctor, he saved me…but oh, God, what did he do?"

The Doctor closed his eyes. "What he had to," he said, opening his eyes again and stroking the back of her head.

She pulled away and looked at him. "But whatever he did…"

"He did what I would do," he said, pressing his palm to her cheek. "I would tear the universe apart if it meant saving your life."

Tears ran down her cheek. "You idiot," she sobbed. "You bloody, stupid, stubborn idiot." She leaned her forehead against his. "It's what he's done, isn't it? Torn the universe apart to save me."

He swallowed. "Yes."

…………………………………………………………………………………

TBC


	9. Chapter 9

A soft refrain of something she half-recognized led Rose to the TARDIS library. As she entered, she saw with some relief that this room at least hadn't changed that much. Though the surrounding architecture was different, with dark wood panels and ornate light fixtures, the mounds of loose books and huge shelves stacked to bursting were still the same.

And in the corner, the Doctor's favorite old Edwardian desk sat under the same pile of writing materials and half-eaten food it usually was. The chair behind it was a different one. It was the overstuffed Victorian red armchair that she usually favored, as opposed to the twentieth-century office chair on wheels her Doctor always used.

Beside the desk, an old-fashioned gramophone was playing a classical music record. After a moment, she smiled as the memory of where she'd heard it before came back to her. The Doctor had just given her a proper tour around the TARDIS, after the Slitheen invasion, when she'd asked him if there was a spare room she could have.

Rose had been in awe when he'd shown her the library, and had been wandering around, trailing her fingers over the odd assortment of furniture, blowing dust off books and reading their covers. She'd never been much for libraries, but the one on the TARDIS was exactly what libraries should look like to her mind.

When she'd found the gramophone, tucked away in a cupboard, she'd removed it and asked him about. "I'd forgotten that was there," he'd mused, and had put the needle on the record. "Puccini! I haven't listened to opera in ages. Puccini was a nice man."

Rose had smiled and laughed, and he'd taken her hand to show her the rest of the ship, the strains of Puccini following them.

"Hello," said a young voice, and Rose turned to find the boy from earlier seated in the Doctor's chair, frowning over a book as he made notes with an old-fashioned quill.

"Um, hello," Rose answered, smiling a bit uncertainly. "It's Jamie, right?"

The boy looked up at her and smiled. "Yep. Dad ask you to check in on us?"

"Yeah," she nodded. "Where's, um, your sister?"

"Gwyneth," Jamie said. "She's over there on the sofa."

Rose looked round to where the young girl was curled up around a pillow, snoring and drooling onto the upholstered chintz. She laughed. "She's so sweet."

"Only when she's sleeping. Otherwise she's a nightmare."

Rose turned back to Jamie and sat down in the chair opposite the desk. "Spoken like a true brother. And you're not a troublemaker in the slightest, I suppose?"

Jamie rolled his eyes. "Look, whatever Mum and Dad said, it isn't true. Mostly. Probably."

Rose laughed. "You sound like me."

Jamie looked down at the book he was reading and shifted in his chair. "Yeah."

"I'm sorry," she said. "I guess this is as weird for you as it is for me."

The boy bit his lip. "It's only going to get weirder, Rose."

"You can call me Mum, I don't mind," she said, then added, "It's just, I mean…I know how hard it can be, to see family and yet it not be family and…it's all just so confusing. I mean, I know I'm not your mum, not really, not yet anyway. But if it's easier for you, it's okay by me."

Jamie stared at her for a moment, then laughed. "It's good to see you're not that different from her."

"She's a bit smarter," Rose shrugged.

"Only 'cause she's been around longer," he pointed out. "You'll get the hang of it all, eventually. If we make it through this alive," he added, thoughtfully.

Rose reached across the desk and took his hand. "The Doctor will think of something. He always does."

Jamie met her gaze. "Rose…Mum. There may be nothing left that he can do."

……………………………………………………………………………….

"Good heavens, Doctor," Sarah-Jane said, pulling away from him. "I had a hard time believing the other one, but this…you're so…understated."

The Doctor shrugged and let go of her. "Nothing wrong with this jumper."

"No," she laughed, "it's a very nice jumper. Red looks good on you."

He laughed and hugged her again quickly. "You look fantastic. And," he noticed, pointing to her hand, "you got married! Well done, Sarah-Jane! Who's the lucky bloke?"

"He's not exactly a bloke. They don't have that term on Farristell."

The Doctor gaped at her for a moment. "You married an alien!"

She snorted. "Don't know why you're surprised."

He sighed and touched her cheek. "Fair point. I'm sorry I left you, Sarah."

She took his hand and gave it a soft squeeze. "It's all in the past. The important thing now," she said, "is to get rid of these bloody Daleks and get this whole mess sorted out. How are we doing, Harriet?"

"Not well, I'm afraid," Harriet Jones said, coming to stand beside them. "They're inside the secondary defense ring now."

"Any communications?"

"None," Harriet shook her head. "We've tried hailing them, but I suppose there's no chance of a surrender."

"Not a chance in hell," the Doctor agreed. "We've got to destroy every last one of them in order to win this. The Daleks don't take prisoners, and we can't afford to."

"Agreed," Sarah-Jane said. "And I think I might have something that'll help us."

"What's that?" the Doctor asked, frowning.

She led them down into the center of the control room and motioned one of her aids forward. The young man held a large metal box, which Sarah-Jane opened with a small hand-held device. It hissed open, and revealed a complicated looking bit of machinery inside.

The Doctor's eyebrows rose in surprise. "You're kidding me! This is perfect! Where'd you get it?"

"The Farristellian Science Institute. It's their second working prototype."

Harriet Jones frowned at it and looked at the Doctor. "What is it?" she asked.

The Doctor grinned widely. "A Time Dilation Field Generator!"

…………………………………………………………………………….

"A what?" Rose asked into her headset, struggling to keep stride with the Doctor, who was moving swiftly ahead of her, his suit jacket thrown over his shoulder.

He paused and looked back at her, but she waved him on towards the TARDIS. The landing bay looked so vast and empty without all those ships, she noted. It was a good thing they had more than one evacuation protocol in place.

Sarah-Jane said something in her earpiece, and Rose replied, "Yeah, alright. I'm going to help the other two with the whole universe-unraveling problem if you can manage that one and the whole Daleks-are-going-to-eat-us thing. Okay? Yeah. Yes. Perfect. Okay, good luck, Sarah."

Rose caught up with the Doctor and said, "Sara-Jane nicked a Time Dilation Field Generator from the Farristellian Science Institute."

"Oh, well done, Sarah-Jane," he said.

"What exactly is that? I'm not familiar with the name."

"It's a bit of technology that generates the same warping effect on space-time that you get at the event horizon of a black hole," he explained. "Practically speaking, it'll create a bubble in which time will move more slowly inside than out."

"So we can use it to slow down the Dalek fleet while we figure out how to fix this?"

"Exactly," the Doctor nodded, shrugging back into his suit jacket and buttoning it. "He's working on interfacing the technology, I assume?"

"Who?"

He gestured back towards the lift. "Him, the other one. Nine, whatever you want to call him."

"Oh," she said. "Yeah. He's up there with Sarah-Jane."

He winced. "Ooo, glad I missed that conversation."

Rose laughed, then stopped herself. "Sorry, this probably isn't the best time to laugh."

"No," he admitted, "but then that's never stopped us, has it?" He imitated Queen Victoria's high upper-class drawl, "I'm so not amused."

She snorted, pulling open the TARDIS door and stepping inside. The other Doctor, the one she'd married, was bending over the controls, looking none too happy. As he looked up at her, she sighed, realizing he'd probably just come to the same conclusion that she and Ten had come to.

"We," he said, "are in rather deep trouble, I'm afraid."

………………………………………………………………………………

"I just don't understand," Ten said, hanging his head down into the pit that once housed the Eye of Harmony. "How can it be gone? The TARDIS still has power, what's she drawing power from if not the Eye?"

"It's auxiliary power," Eight said, handing him a tool. "It's leeching off the Vortex."

"Yeah, but what's powering the Vortex if not the Eye?"

"Fair point," Eight admitted. "So it's not gone so much as it's…what? Inaccessible?"

"Something like that," Ten sighed. "I knew I should've paid closer attention to that class at the Academy."

"Yes, I clearly recall sleeping through most of that," Eight smiled wistfully. "They never should have seated me at the back."

"And it was right after lunch, do you remember that? Like I could really stay awake for that, and coupled with the Professor's droning monotone…I mean, honestly!" Ten bent over and scanned the surface of the spherical impression.

"The rest of them managed it, though I'll never know how. Fat lot of help they were, too, all so serious and stuffy."

"Yes, well, that's our specialty, isn't it? Serious and stuffy. Do you know, I had a Krillotane call us dusty old senators to my face?"

Eight blinked. "Really? A Krillotane thought we were old and dusty? You let a Krillotane say that?"

"Yeah, well, K-9 blew him up later, but the point is that he was sort of right, wasn't he?" Ten sighed, and placed a hand against the cool metal of the pit. "I never fit in there, did I?"

"No," Eight sighed. "Never. Even with the changes in the Time Council Romana brought around. Didn't help that I brought home a human to marry."

"Bet the family were pleased."

"Don't know, never spoke to them," Eight said, an uncharacteristic edge to his voice.

"Well," Ten said, "that's not surprising. I fought so hard for them." He closed his eyes and rubbed his hand over his face. "I did, I fought so hard to save their lives. Everyone's life. I didn't want it to end how it did. It wasn't my plan, but they asked me to carry it out. They asked me…because they thought I could do it."

He sat down, suddenly weary. Eight said nothing, just watched him silently. "The Time Council," Ten continued, "entrusted me with the trigger to blow up our entire world because they thought I had so little love for it that I wouldn't hesitate."

"And did you hesitate?"

"No," he whispered, pain clawing its way into his throat. He swallowed against it. "What does that make me?"

Rose had been silent throughout this exchange, standing against the far wall of the room. Now she came forward and said gently, "The Doctor. It makes you the Doctor."

They both looked at her. "You had to make a decision," she said, "and they trusted you to do that. Maybe they thought it for the wrong reasons, but you're still the only one of them who would've made a decision either way. The others, they watched the universe but they never experienced it like you did. They never experienced the need for sacrifice, where even one life can tip the balance between good and evil. They never understood that, but you did."

She sighed. "It doesn't make you perfect. It doesn't even make you good. But neither does it make you evil. You're the Doctor. You're the only one willing to hold the scalpel."

"And you're going to have to make a decision now," said another voice, and they all turned to see Jamie standing in the doorway.

His father looked over at him, opening his mouth to tell him to go back to bed, but then changed his mind and gestured him over. "What is it, son?"

"I think I figured it out."

……………………………………………………………………………..

"This is…this is really quite brilliant," Ten said, looking over the data in the TARDIS control room. "Well done, Jamie."

Eight ruffled his son's hair.

"I still don't quite get it," Rose said, smoothing her son's hair down automatically. "How can there be no Eye of Harmony in this universe?"

"Because," Eight explained, "it's not a real universe."

"How is that? I mean, we're real enough," she protested.

"Yes, but this universe isn't our universe. It's an amalgam universe, a patchwork quilt of space-time, in a way."

She opened her mouth to say something, but Ten interjected, "We've all been sort of…transplanted, I guess you could say. I think I see what happened now. Whatever happened on Gamestation, it ended up being me – your version of the ninth me – that absorbed the Time Vortex, not you. It was the one thing he had that could bring you back to life and stop the Daleks as well. But he wasn't meant to do it, and it sent a temporal ripple through your universe that's grown into a tsunami."

"Can we go there and stop him?" she said.

Ten shook his head. "We can't. We can't go anywhere near that time, it's too unstable."

"Then what the hell do we do?"

Jamie spoke up. "We create an Eye of Harmony. It's frequency will cancel out the temporal tsunami, as he named it, and everything with sort itself out."

"And," Rose said, "how exactly do we do that?"

"Well," Eight mused, "we could combine the power sources of the three TARDIS's that are here, that would give us enough energy. If we used the Time Dilation device Sarah-Jane brought in…"

"Yes!" Ten said. "If we reverse the field generator, combine it with the energy force…yes, that'd work well enough to create a black hole and pierce its center, but we'd need something to focus it. There's nothing in the universe powerful enough."

"Yes, there is," Jamie said. "You have it on board your TARDIS, tucked away."

Ten shook his head. "It won't work, there are still two pieces missing and we don't have the locator. It would take far two long."

"No," he shook his head, "it won't. The pieces are here."

Eight looked between both of them, then shook his head. "You can't be talking about what I think you are," he said slowly. "The pieces were restored a long time ago."

"Yes," Ten said, "but they were gathered again, Romana and I found them again, just before the Time War ended. We'd hoped to use it as a last resort, but we couldn't find the last two pieces in time."

"Because they're here," Jamie said.

"I don't understand," he frowned.

"Remember Princess Astra?"

Ten stared at him, then he shook his head. "No. That's not possible."

"It's true," Jamie said. "Trust me, I know. We both know, we've both always known."

Eight stared at his son. "Wait…no. Absolutely not. Jamie…" he pulled the boy close to him. "You have to be wrong," he whispered into the boy's hair.

"I'm not," he said, leaning into his father's hug. "I'm sorry."

Rose's heart was beating against her ribcage. She didn't know what was going on, but she was damn sure she didn't like it. "What does he mean? Jamie, what're you talking about?"

"It's us, Mum," Jamie said softly. "Gwyneth and I are the last two pieces."

"The last two pieces to what?" she asked.

Ten breathed out a long, pained sigh. "The last two pieces of the Key to Time."

…………………………………………………………………………

TBC


	10. Chapter 10

"No, absolutely not," Rose said. "Don't even think about it."

They were all silent, all four of them. Rose stood, her arms crossed, her breathing coming in painful rasps through a throat tight with emotion. Finally, Jamie shifted away from his father and held out his hand. She took it, then pulled him close into a fierce hug.

"Mum," he said, muffled against her shoulder, "it has to be done."

"No."

"Mum, please listen," he insisted.

"No," she said firmly, clutching him close. "We'll find another way. We'll find something else. I'm not giving you up, either of you."

She looked to her husband for support, but he refused to meet her eyes and walked over to the overstuffed Victorian chair where he sat down heavily with his head between his hands.

So that was it, Ten thought, watching him. This one, this version of himself, wouldn't have to sacrifice Gallifrey to save the universe.

He'd have to sacrifice his children.

"Mum," Jamie said, "it's not death. We'll change form, yes, but we can be changed back once it's all finished."

"No," Ten said, finally finding his voice. "It won't work like that, Jamie. The Key will reset Time itself. All traces of this universe and the time lines touching it will be cleansed. Events will start over in each separate reality, and there's no telling the point it will restart from. You and your sister may not be born, and since it was an anomaly that sent him," he nodded to Eight, "into your mother's timeline to begin with…there's no guarantee things will happen the same way. Even if you are born to a different Doctor and Rose, you still won't be the same. It is, in a way, a death."

"So is regeneration," Jamie pointed out. "Gwyn and I are connected to the Key. Even if time resets, we won't vanish. Changed or not, we'll still be us, essentially."

"No," Rose repeated, but she knew it was futile. "Please…" she cried, her voice cracking.

Eight was on his feet and moving to take Rose into his arms before Ten could react. Rose dug her fingers into green-velvet shoulders and buried her face into an elegant silk cravat. Ten had a sudden memory of her doing the same to him before, only it had been black leather and a wool jumper.

He missed her.

The TARDIS door opened and the other one, Nine, came through, all smiles until he saw the tableau before him. His eyes darted around automatically for his Rose and he looked over at Ten, who supplied, "She's in the library with the little girl, Gwyneth."

Nine came closer. "What's happened?" he asked, gesturing to the huddle of Eight, Rose, and Jamie.

"It's the same," Ten said in an empty voice. "The entire world of Gallifrey or one simple family, it's the same. Just traded one sacrifice for another."

Nine watched him for a moment, then looked back over at the others and sighed. It was the sound of a broken man, Ten thought.

But just then the other Rose reappeared and immediately went to Nine's side, automatically gripping his hand as she looked around questioningly. He looked down at her, and a long look passed between them, one which she understood somehow and moved closer to him, her arm wrapping round his waist, and his going around her shoulders.

Ten flexed his own empty fingers, and vowed that no matter what happened here, he would not lose his Rose. He wouldn't let her leave. If it was too late for that, he'd get her back. No more running, no more hiding. No more staving off future loneliness by holding back people in the present. He didn't deserve Rose, but he needed her.

……………………………………………………………………………….

The Time Dilation Field was holding back the Daleks for now, giving Jack enough time to finish the work on Weapons Station. As soon as the field was reversed, Jack would have enough firepower to destroy the fleet.

Or at least enough of it to allow the Doctors to complete their work and set the universe right.

Rose guessed she should be relieved, but it was hard. The other her, Rose-Two, had to sacrifice so much to save the universe. She knew now, understood that it wasn't exactly her future, but still…even though she didn't have kids, she knew how much the other Rose must love her family.

She knew, too, how much the other Rose must love the Doctor because it was the same for her.

Rose sighed, leaning back in the TARDIS consol chair. The familiar one; they'd all retreated back to their own TARDIS's to do something or other to the power sources. Rose wasn't sure of the details, but she knew it was complicated.

The Doctor was outside, saying goodbye to someone he'd introduced to her as an old friend. Sarah-Jane Smith was her name. She must've met her sometime, the other her at least, because Sarah-Jane had hugged her and whispered, "Stay with him. No matter what, stay with him as long as you can."

It was funny, she hadn't really thought about it before. Her life now, traveling with the Doctor, had seemed like a dream at first. Like she'd wake up and find herself having to go to work or meeting Mickey somewhere for chips or something.

And now, it felt like the only reality. She knew she'd never be able to go back to that life. What would she do without the Doctor? She hadn't even thought about it, had just behaved like him; living in the present.

The consol beeped, and Rose leaned forward and flicked up the switch the Doctor had told her to. A light turned green, which apparently meant that something was charging up. She wasn't exactly sure about that, either, but had followed the instructions he'd given her.

Her thoughts turned to the other Rose. She was with the Doctor, her Doctor but still the Doctor, and her children for probably the last time. She'd married a past version of him, so she had to have known…she'd known the dangers and the pain of this life and still she'd thrown herself into it.

Because this…as lovely as traveling with the Doctor was, it wasn't permanent. What Rose-Two had was permanent. No more unspoken meanings behind words, no more cryptic looks, no more hiding behind the pretense of just friends.

She'd been as guilty of that as the Doctor. He was wonderful, but he was still alien, and it had frightened her more than she'd ever admit to when she first knew she was in love with him. Rose had denied it, chucking it up to the inevitable sexual tension between two people who are around each other so much. Just her silly hormones.

But the way he'd look at her sometimes…those blue eyes holding a wealth of emotion just barely below the surface. She hadn't let herself truly see it, even though she dreamt almost every night of it. What had he said about humans?

Always willing to believe unless they were staring it right in the face.

…………………………………………………………………………..

"I really am sorry, Sarah-Jane," he said, tucking his hands into his leather coat.

She smiled at him, that smile he remembered so well. "I know."

"I never meant to hurt you, I just didn't…I didn't think."

"I know," she smiled again. "You were never good at that."

"What?" the Doctor said, injured. "Thinking?"

"Yes," she drawled. "Thinking about emotions. And not just human emotions, Doctor. You're crap with your own, too."

"True enough," he admitted, giving her a lopsided smile. "I never did tell you how much you meant to me, Sarah."

"You didn't have to," she said softly. "It took me a long time to understand why you didn't come back for me, but eventually I did. It's funny, I still didn't fully understand even after I saw you again – the tenth you, that is. It wasn't until the alliance with Farristell."

"Oh?"

A sad look came over her face. "For as many people that took advantage of the advanced medicine and anti-aging technology, there were as many who didn't. I had friends, people I was very close to, choose not to live an extended life. I stood by and watched them again, pretending not to notice, pretending it didn't bother me."

"But it did."

"It hurt," she whispered. "A lot."

"I know," he said, pulling her into a hug. "I know, Sarah-Jane."

She patted his shoulder and pulled away. "But as much as it hurt, there was one woman I was friends with. Her name was Ellen, I worked with her at the paper. She'd refused treatment, but where the others were distrustful, she was accepting. She knew her lot in life, she knew how it would end, and she chose to meet it with grace."

He tilted his head at her.

Sarah-Jane looked him in the eye and said, "You can't keep death from touching you forever. No one can, not even you, Doctor. She may die and you may live on, but that's in the future. What matters is now. And she's here, now. You may live in the present, but you let it pass too quickly. Just stop and stand still, even if it's only for a moment."

The Doctor swallowed past a painful lump in his throat and nodded. "You always were a smart one," he said hoarsely.

"I know you," she said softly, touching his cheek briefly. "But I've let you go, now, Doctor. She won't."

He took her hand in his, pressing a soft kiss to her fingers. She smiled.

"Thank you," he said.

…………………………………………………………………………………

Rose looked up as the Doctor shut the TARDIS doors behind him and leaned against them. "Is it charging up?" he asked.

She nodded. "I think so, yeah. It's doing what you said it would, anyway."

He snorted. "That's a first."

"Tellin' me."

He walked towards the consol, shrugging out of his jacket and setting it aside. He seemed remarkably calm for the end of the universe, she thought. "I feel terrible," she sighed.

The Doctor looked at her. "What's wrong?"

She shrugged. "I just feel so bad for them. I mean, I know it's not us, but it still felt so close, y'know? They're so much like us. And then there's him, the other one. He's all on his own."

"Yeah," he said softly, a shadow crossing over his face.

Rose watched him for a moment while he fiddled with some control she was sure didn't need fiddling with at all. "Still," she said, a small twitch pulling up the corner of her mouth, "good thing he'll realize what a git he is now."

He looked up at her in surprise, frowning. "What do you mean? Do you know why they're not traveling together, then?"

She couldn't help but smile. "Your eighth self is a gossip."

He winced. "What'd he do?"

"Apparently," she said, "they had an argument."

"We have arguments all the time, you haven't trotted off yet."

She chewed her bottom lip. "I guess something happened on a space station. He went to save someone, but ended up nearly stranding his Rose and Mickey –"

"Mickey?!" he exclaimed.

" – on the space station without him to fly the TARDIS."

The Doctor paused, digesting this. "Well," he said, "that was just stupid. Who were they?"

"Who?" she asked.

"The person he went to save. Who were they?"

"Ah," she said, shifting in the chair and raising an eyebrow. "Apparently that's the big issue. It was some old French tart…what was her name? Madame de Pompadour."

"What? Seriously?" he blinked. "Interesting. Why was that a big deal?"

Rose looked at him, jutting her chin out a bit. "Because," she said slowly, "you had a thing with her."

He stared. "What?"

"Well," she amended, "not you, him. Still. Apparently you developed a little torch for her."

"And she got jealous?" he smirked.

"Think about it from her perspective," Rose said. "I mean, if it was me – and it is, which is sort of weird – at any rate, if it were you and me now, I know how upset I'd be. Seeing you run off to be the white knight to someone else without a second thought to what would happen to me? I'd be a bit angry, yeah."

"You got your pretty boy, and I didn't say a word about it! Not to mention Mickey the Idiot."

"Yeah, but I didn't leave you for them. It was the other way around. God," she moaned, "I think I know how Mickey feels. I'm horrid."

They were both silent for a long moment. The Doctor stirred, crossing his arms and leaning against the consol next to where Rose was propping her feet up. "Rose," he said softly. "I can't promise you that won't happen to us. I…well, I have a tendency not to think sometimes. I just get caught up in things, and I don't think about the consequences until it's too late."

"I've noticed," she said dryly.

He raised an eyebrow at her. "But the other Doctor – what were you calling him? Ten? – at any rate, he's not that far off from me. Neither of them are. I know what he's thinking, and I know how much he must miss having his Rose with him. Especially after seeing you and me and the other two. He'll do what I'd do."

"And what's that?"

"Find you," he said softly. "He'll go back for her. Just this once in his life. Just her. The only person in the universe he'd go back for."

She smiled, blinking away tears. "She'll go with him," Rose said. "Because life without you and the TARDIS is worth it. It's worth any pain, any sorrow, any loss. You're worth it."

He moved, closing the gap between them, and pulled her into his arms. "Rose Tyler," he said softly. "So are you."

…………………………………………………………………………….

Rose pulled at another wire, busying herself with work and trying not to think about what would happen soon. Beside her, the body of her husband shifted as he pulled up another floor panel. "Pass me the hydro-spanner."

It wasn't the one he wanted, so she passed him the right one. He never could keep the names straight half the time. It was why he'd invented the sonic screwdriver; so he didn't have to carry around a box of tools with names he couldn't remember.

His fingers closed around hers as he took the tool from her, and he met her eyes. His gaze was soft, understanding, and full of the same emotions she was feeling.

He sighed. "It always seems to end like this. In pain."

She touched his cheek. "Yeah, but there was so much joy, too. If we avoided all of life for fear of the pain when it ended, we'd be no better than Cybermen."

"So it's worth it?" he asked, his soft cultured voice laced with emotion.

Rose leaned forward and brushed her lips against his, her hand closing around the familiar feel of green velvet as she gripped his shoulder. "Yes," she whispered. "It was worth every second."

……………………………………………………………………………..

He leaned against the TARDIS consol, watching lights shift from red to green, indicating the ready status of the external drive. This was it, then. Some calculations, some minor work hooking all the TARDIS engines together and then…

…what?

He didn't know. He wasn't entirely sure how his own universe would be reset. There were so many variables, so many ways he could go back to an empty life without Rose.

It had only been one day without her, and it felt like a lifetime.

Breaking a promise he'd made to himself when she left, he picked up the TARDIS phone. With great care, he dialed her number and forced himself to take a few steady breaths as her mobile rang.

He didn't know whether to be relieved or angry when her voice mail picked up, but at this point, he'd take anything.

"Rose," he said, his voice not at all as steady as he would have liked. "I know I said I wouldn't do this. I told you I wouldn't call, that once you were gone, that was that. But I was wrong, Rose. I was wrong about everything. I should have never let you go."

He sighed. "I hate how this all sounds like some ending to a horrid Hugh Grant movie, but it's the truth. I'm sorry, Rose. But the truth is that I'd just grown so used to you being there…I'd assumed you always would be, no matter what. I knew, somehow, when I was stranded back in France that I'd find a way back to you, even if it meant living a whole three thousand years on Earth."

He slid into the consol chair, still holding the phone. "I just always thought you'd be there when I got back, and I should have…I should have said something, I know, but I just took for granted that you would understand. I'm sorry, Rose. I didn't think. I do that, you know, I screw up. I'm not perfect. And I've never done this, you know."

The consol beeped and he flicked another switch. "I've never let anyone as close as you. And," he paused, realizing the other Doctors were trying to contact him, "and I don't have a lot of time right now, Rose. Some things are going on, and…well it's me versus the universe again, you know. Same old routine. Only now I'm doing it alone, and I want you with me, Rose. I don't care what it takes. When this is over, no matter what happens, I'm coming back for you Rose."

He stood, about to hang up the phone, then added, "Look, the point of this is that I need you with me, and right now all I've got is your voice mail, and that just isn't good enough. How do the lyrics go to that stupid song you always listen to? Something about still loving you tomorrow even if the world ends tonight? Funny thing is that sort of applies right now. Quite literally, in fact. I love you, Rose. No matter what happens, just remember that, okay?"

………………………………………………………………………

Rose toweled her hair dry and slipped on her favorite jeans and t-shirt. She winced as she remembered that her mum had set up a job interview for her today. The reality of that wasn't something she wanted to face right now.

In fact, the only thing that kept her from completely falling apart was the fact that she was still pissed at him.

Stupid alien git, she thought bitterly.

She shuffled into the kitchen, depression sinking in on her. This really was it. This wasn't like last time, when he'd threatened to leave her in 1987. She'd told him to shove off, this time. And he had.

And he wouldn't come back. He didn't do that. Once he left, that was that.

Maybe she should try and give Sarah-Jane a call. Rose shuddered as she poured herself a cup of coffee. No, she couldn't do that just yet. Talking to Sarah-Jane would make it all too real, and she didn't think she could handle that, either.

From the kitchen counter, her phone gave a beep. New voice mail.

Oh, yippee, she thought. Shareen, maybe. Or more likely her mum, calling her from Howard's, making sure she was up and about.

But it wasn't her mum.

She blinked at the small screen, trying to clear her vision. It had to be a mistake.

When she looked at her phone again, though, it still said the same thing. Rose's breath caught and her heart hammered furiously against her ribcage. She sank down into the kitchen chair, staring at the name on the screen.

One new voice message from TARDIS.

It was the Doctor.

……………………………………………………………………………………

TBC


	11. Chapter 11

Rose stands with one hand on each of her children's shoulders. She knows it isn't the end; they'd explained it to her, both the children and the Doctor had. And she'd gleaned enough over her years as a time traveler to understand what they were talking about. It wasn't the end. Her children weren't going to their deaths, but they would change. Things wouldn't remain the same.

It was like regeneration and yet not. It was strange that she'd never prepared herself for something like this. The children were half-Time Lord after all, and regeneration was in their blood.

The truth was that she'd never expected to live long enough to go through something like this, even if this was extraordinary circumstances. She was still human, after all. Oh, she'd live longer than most because of her connection to the Time Vortex (she still can't believe what he'd risked to save her, but she knows in her heart she'd do the same). But still…she hadn't been ready for this.

Things are happening around her now, in slow motion, it seems. The children step away from her, little Gwyneth looking back and smiling. Jamie saying not to worry, it won't hurt them. It was their destiny.

She doesn't believe in destiny.

But then the Doctor meets her eyes and he's crying, and she knows then that she does believe in destiny. It's always been there, guiding her to him. She reaches up and touches his face, his tears moistening her fingertips.

Their children are becoming light and something more, something she can't name but she can feel it. There's a song in her head, being sung in their voices, and the beauty of it nearly rips apart her soul. The Doctor's arms are around her, and she leans close to him for one last kiss before the universe ends.

But it's not an end, they tell her. It's a beginning.

……………………………………………………………………………

"We won't remember this," he tells her, his hands cupping her face, rough and calloused against her cheeks. "All of this, all of what we've seen today will be erased from our memories."

"It doesn't make it any less true," Rose says, reaching up a hand of her own to caress his cheek.

They look at each other, and Rose feels what she always does when he looks at her like that; she feels more than herself, like she's no longer an ordinary human but part of something greater. She feels like her life had been spent in the dark, and now that he's come in and turned on the lights, there's no way she could ever turn them off again.

She feels time move through her, and she knows that whatever the Doctors were planning to save the universe, it was working. Things shift and slow, and she feels an urge to act before its too late.

If they'll never remember this, then there's nothing to lose.

She kisses him. Not a friendly kiss on the cheek, not a simple show of the affection that they both know is beneath the surface of every conversation. Rose gives everything she has to this one kiss, every ounce of herself. Her love, her anger, her passion, her grief…everything that has ever touched her or become part of her she gives to him.

And in that one brief, stolen moment in time, he gives her the same.

…………………………………………………………………………………

He pulls the trigger again.

Not because it's not his family, and not because he doesn't care. It's because he does care, and he wants to save them the pain. He takes the pain for himself because he knows he's survived it once. He can survive it again.

The Eye of Harmony bursts to life, its tendrils reaching across every aspect of space-time, every second exploding into white light, waiting to be molded. He finds himself falling under the strain of witnessing it; seeing what no one was meant to see.

It's not such a bad way to die, he thinks.

But he wakes again, in darkness this time, the only thing before his vision a white speck of light. It grows a bit, and he stands. He's not aware of his body, but he thinks it's still there.

Was this it? Death? Not much to it, if it was. Didn't one of Earth's many faiths mention something about a thousand naked virgins or something? At least that would've been interesting. Though, his luck…it'd end up being a thousand naked Raxicoricofallipatorian virgins.

"You're not dead," a voice says, at once both familiar and unfamiliar. It seems to come from everywhere and nowhere. It exists without actually being voiced.

Bit creepy, that.

The white light grows and he finds himself standing in the TARDIS, only part of it illuminated. By the controls stand the figure of a boy, who's smiling at him.

Jamie.

"Hello," he says.

"Hello," the Doctor replies, not quite sure what else to say. "Did it work?"

Jamie smiles. "Yes."

"But, you're not…"

"Not what?"

"Well, a geometric piece of temporal crystal, for starters."

Jamie laughs. "The Key is more than that."

He considers this, then nods. "So what now?"

"Now everything is set right again. Gwyn and I have reconstructed the other universes. Now it's your turn."

The Doctor scratches his head. "I won't remember any of this, will I?"

Jamie grins. "No, I think you will. I think you need to. Your universe is your problem, after all. Not mine."

The Doctor pauses. "Oh?"

Jamie shrugs. "I always liked Hugh Grant movies."

The remaining light grows brighter, engulfing Jamie within it before the Doctor can respond. Everything is blindingly bright, and then it's dark again.

As he sleeps, the Doctor doesn't see the two small figures of children bend down and kiss his forehead, then disappear.

………………………………………………………………………………………

It was an ordinary day for Rose Tyler. The alarm rang, she struggled out of bed, stumbling into the bathroom. She fell asleep with her head against the bathroom mirror as she brushed her teeth. Her mum woke her up, and she had to go and change her shirt because she'd dribbled toothpaste all down it.

Brilliant. She'd wanted to wear the powder blue top, not the stupid gray one.

Work went like usual. She folded a stack of shirts, then ten minutes later folded it again because someone couldn't find the right size and had strewn the pile all over. She helped a woman in the dressing room find the courage to try on a swimming costume, then found herself patting the woman on the back as she cried and telling her that her thighs really didn't look all that bad. Maybe she should try a costume with shorts?

Rose made a few calls on her mobile at lunch, and ended up having chips with Shareen. That was the worst part about breaking up with Mickey; no one to have lunch with. He might not have been the best boyfriend, and he may have cared more about football than about her, but he had always been around. She couldn't fault him that.

When lunch with Shareen was done, she'd struggled through four more hours of shop life, then had been overjoyed at the chance to escape for the evening.

But, of course, it could never be easy, could it?

The stupid lottery money. And now she had to go and find Wilson. God, that basement creeped her out sometimes. All those dummies.

Rose wandered about, calling for Wilson, confused when his office was locked. She turned around, thinking she'd seen movement from the corner of her eye, but it was just a dummy.

A dummy that was moving.

Rose did a double take and stared. The shop window dummy was definitely moving, its plastic limbs creaking as it staggered forward. This was stupid, it had to be some sort of joke. "Who are you? What are you doing?" she said, trying to sound indignant and not scared. "Is this some kind of joke?"

Other dummies started moving, closing in around her. Rose stumbled against a wall and said with rising panic, "Alright, you can stop now. It's not funny anymore. Wilson? Wilson!"

She gasped as the dummies moved closer. Her brain was in overdrive, trying to figure out what was going on, but she couldn't really think coherently. One of the dummies raised its arm as though ready to strike her, and while her brain rebelled against the thought of being attacked by shop window dummies, she flinched and ducked.

But then someone moved in front of her, swinging a metal pipe, and the dummies were knocked backwards. Rose stared in disbelief as a tall, handsome man dressed in some sort of Victorian costume turned round and dropped the pipe. He smiled, and it lit up his pleasant face, his blue eyes sparkling.

She gaped at him as he stepped forward and took her hand in his, helping her to her feet. Glancing back over his shoulder, she saw the dummies start to move again, and she pointed at them, still incapable of speech. He looked at them, then looked back at her and grinned.

"Ah," he said, his voice smooth and cultured. "Well, then," he continued, his long fingers closing around hers, "shall we run?"

And with that, her life changed forever.

…………………………………………………………………………………

The TARDIS shuddered, and Rose was tipped out of bed. Groping along the wall, she pulled herself to her feet and blinked the sleep out of her eyes. The TARDIS shuddered again, but she held on.

The hell?

"Doctor?" she yelled, but there was no response.

She poked her head out of her bedroom door way. "Doctor?" she called again, and this time a reply came, but all she made out above the sounds of thunking and thudding was to hurry her ass up.

"What?" she yelled back.

"Emergency!" she heard him reply.

Great. Rose ducked back into her room and pulled on a pair of jeans and the first t-shirt that came to hand, not even bothering to look at it. She raked her hair up into a haphazard ponytail, tucked her feet into some shoes and sprinted for the control room.

The Doctor grinned at her as the TARDIS decking bucked beneath her feet and she fell against a railing. "You alright?" he called, tugging on his black leather jacket and helping her to her feet.

"Fantastic," she said. "What's the emergency?"

He grinned. "It's mauve!"

………………………………………………………………………………

The smell of ozone woke him.

The Doctor groaned and rolled over, pushing himself off the grating of the TARDIS control room. There was a sharp pain in his head, and as he reached up gingerly he felt blood. He looked at the consol and saw a spot of blood on the edge. He must've fallen and smacked his head on it.

There was much sparking and hissing from the controls, and from some circuits below the grating as well. He reached across the panel and flicked a switch, and some of the sparking stopped. He was about to switch off the power and make repairs, but he noticed he was in flight.

To where?

He glanced at the screen. London, England, January the 18th, 2007.

Ah. Memory started to stir in his mind. Alternate versions of himself, different Roses, even children…creating an Eye of Harmony, saving the universe. But why did he remember it? The timelines were supposed to reset.

He vaguely remembered hearing something…someone's voice telling him that his universe was his problem.

Heh. Cheeky little twerp. Good to know his son turned out just like him.

Son. That was still a strange concept. He'd never considered having children. Susan had been as close to it as he'd ever gotten.

He found himself smiling, but the consol sparked again and reclaimed his attention. He really didn't want a repeat of the Christmas crash landing. Shrugging out of his suit jacket and tie, he tossed them aside and rolled up his sleeves. Bending down he uncovered a panel at he bottom of the TARDIS control consol and began pulling wires.

The Doctor wasn't entirely sure he remembered how to do this, but he'd probably figure it out.

…………………………………………………………………………………….

Rose listened to the message again, for about the tenth time that morning. By now she knew the words of the message by heart, and she just listened to make sure…to make sure it was really his voice.

She passed the phone to her mum and let her listen to it, pacing around the kitchen and biting her thumbnail. Her mum's eyebrows lifted to her hairline, and her mouth hung open as she listened to it. When it was done, she set the phone down and stared at Rose.

"What do I do, Mum?" she whispered.

She was silent for a long moment, then looked at Rose. "What do you want to do, sweetheart?"

"I want to go back with him," she said, not even hesitating. "But should I?"

"No," her mum said, shaking her head. "There are a thousand reasons why you shouldn't."

"I know," Rose wailed miserably, thumping back into the kitchen chair and holding her head between her hands.

She felt her mum's hand close over hers and she looked up. "But," she said, "if everyone went around worrying about what they shouldn't do, then they wouldn't do anything at all, would they?"

Rose stared at her, blinking away tears.

Her mum took her face between her hands. "I love you, Rose," she said, "and I want you here at home, where you're safe. But that's because I'm your mother. And as hard," she swallowed, her voice raising in pitch as she tried not to cry, "as hard as it is for me to let you go, sweetheart, I have to."

Rose sniffed and stood, wrapping her arms around her mother.

"You're happy with him," Jackie said to her, stroking her hair. "You act different now, like you really know who you are. You're right, he has shown you a better life. He brings out something in you even I never saw."

Rose pulled away from her, wiping her nose on her sleeve. Her mum clicked her tongue at her and took a tissue from the box on the table, handing it to her. "And I'll tell you what else," Jackie added. "Pete and I had some horrible rows when he was still alive."

"I know," Rose smiled.

Her mum gave her a half-smile. "But even though we'd tear each other apart sometimes, I never loved him any less. And if I could start it all over again, even knowing…even knowing I would lose him, I'd still do it. Because those moments when it was good, it was worth all the pain."

Rose was about to say something, but a familiar scraping sound caught her attention. She looked at her mum, her eyes wide with an unspoken question.

"Go to him, sweetheart," she said.

………………………………………………………………………………..

Rose ran across the pavement, her breath catching painfully in her lungs, her heart pounding. She reached the TARDIS door before she realized that she'd kept the key. He hadn't taken it back. And that morning, she'd automatically slipped it into her jeans pocket like she always did.

Old habits die hard.

Grinning, she pulled out the key with shaking fingers and slipped it into the lock.

……………………………………………………………………………..

The Doctor stood, hands to his head. He'd hit it again on the consol as he'd landed. He wondered if he should invest in that padding foam they used to baby-proof human houses. Considering that he was now bleeding again from a fresh cut on his forehead, it didn't seem too absurd an idea.

He looked down, noting that a bit of blood had dripped onto his shirt, and he had TARDIS grease smeared all over him. He probably looked frightening. He should go and clean up before he went after Rose.

Yes, he should definitely clean up. And what did human men do? Didn't they go get flowers or something? If he bought roses for Rose, wouldn't that be a bit…cheesy? And what if she was allergic?

He was debating on whether or not to go get flowers when the TARDIS door opened. Turning, his breath caught as he saw Rose. She stood at the bottom of the ramp, the door closing back on its hinges behind her.

They stared at each other for what seemed like ages, then finally Rose took a step forward. "Doctor?" she said gingerly, her eyes wide.

"Rose," he whispered. Key. He'd forgotten she still had a key.

He grinned, and she ran to him, throwing her arms around him. It hurt a bit; he must've bruised a rib or two somehow earlier, but it was the most welcome pain he'd ever felt. He wrapped his arms around her and hugged her to him with equal force. "I missed you," he sighed into her hair.

"I missed you, too," she said, sniffing and pulling away from him. "Oh, you're bleeding!"

He looked at her a bit sheepishly. "I, er…I hit my head on the consol."

She stared at him. "You idiot! Come here," she sighed, pulling him out of the control room and into the infirmary.

The Doctor sat patiently and let her tend to his injuries, enjoying the feel of her hands on his face and the sound of her voice as she rattled on while she worked. When she was done, she stood in front of him and demanded to be told what happened.

He laughed. "Rose, I don't even know where to begin. You're not going to believe a word of it."

"Doctor," she snorted, "I travel with you. With all the things I've seen you think there's something out there I won't believe?"

He paused, tilting his head at her. "So you're still traveling with me, then?"

"I'm here, aren't I?" she smirked.

"What changed your mind?"

She frowned at him. "You did. That message you left me."

Message? Oh. Now he remembered. "Ah," he breathed. "You…you heard that?"

"Yeah, I did," she said. "Was I not supposed to?"

"No, I mean, yes," he said hastily, "you were meant to hear it. I just didn't actually think I'd manage to get it through to you. I mean, I did, but then I thought it would be erased when the universe reset since I wasn't sure at what point the time line would actually reset at, and…I'm not making any sense am I?"

Rose grinned and laughed, "No, not at all."

He grinned back. "Sorry."

She bit her lip and looked up at him as he stood. "Did you mean it?"

"What?" he blinked.

"The message."

He stepped close to her and touched her face. "Every word, Rose. I meant every word."

Her eyes scanned his face and seemed to see something that satisfied her. Standing on tip-toe, she leaned into him, and very gently kissed him on the mouth. She pulled away, looking up at him again, this time with an unspoken invitation hanging in the air.

He closed the gap between them, placing his hands at her waist and pulling her against him. Running one hand up the length of her spine, he cupped the back of her head and kissed her, his lips tugging at hers with volumes of unspoken passion. She opened her mouth slightly, and their breath mingled as his tongue danced over hers. As he pulled away, she held onto his bottom lip with her teeth, and the feel of them against the sensitive skin of his mouth made a small moan escape from the back of his throat.

Wordlessly, he lifted her onto the medical cot and kissed her mouth again, briefly this time as his lips trailed further along her skin. Her hands gripped his shoulders and her legs parted and wrapped around his hips. He let one hand trail up her thigh while the other ran through her hair.

She let out a low growl when he pressed a hot kiss to the pulse of her neck, sounding almost like a purr. He smiled and his lips found their way back to hers for a long, deep, hot kiss that left both of them panting. "Rose," he whispered hoarsely.

She looked at him and there was so much emotion in her eyes it made his throat tight. He kissed her again, never wanting to stop. If this was his present, he wanted to live in it forever; he wanted to burn it into his brain and never forget the way this felt.

Her fingers found their way into his hair, and he was never more grateful to not be bald. The feel of it sent shivers down his spine, and his hand on her thigh tightened. They parted for breath again, and he rested his head in the crook of her neck, breathing in the smell of her.

She'd always been partial to lavender-scented soap. It filled his nostrils, along with the more subtle, indefinably feminine, and utterly human scent of her skin. Her hand moved from his shoulder to trail along his neck, coming to rest at the bare skin where his collar was open.

He pulled away slightly, just enough to look in her eyes and let the unspoken question hang between them. He saw in her eyes that she understood, and when the hand on his chest moved slightly lower and her fingers undid the topmost button of his shirt, he knew it was her answer.

He took her hand and silently led her out of the infirmary. They only made it to the hallway before the brush of her hips against his sent fire racing through him and he had to kiss her again. They stumbled through the corridor, entangled in each other, the Doctor feeling along the wall for the first bedroom he came across.

His fingers found a door, which was lucky because Rose had succeeded in freeing him of his shirt, and he was working the clasp on her jeans with his other hand. They fell inside the room, and he dimly noticed from the sparse furnishings that his was his rarely-used room, not hers. He was glad. Hers would be empty.

Rose pushed him back onto the bed with more force than he expected, and she tore off her t-shirt before she straddled him, her hips grinding against his. He laughed, and flipped her over onto his back, trailing kisses down her chest as his nimble fingers worked the ridiculously complicated clasp of the human bra. Once undone, he flung the silky black thing aside and closed his mouth over one pink nipple while cupping the other with his hand.

She gasped and arched her back into him, fingers digging into his scalp as he moved his tongue lower on her body, taking in every taste of her skin.

With one well-placed tug and a kick of her legs, she was free of both her jeans and panties, but before he could explore, she'd pushed him over and was working the fastenings of his trousers. He helped her, and once he was free of them, she smirked at the realization that he hadn't been wearing any underwear.

But he captured her mouth with his again before she could comment, and soon her body was stretched out over his, both of them just enjoying the feel of skin against skin. Hand moved up and down, leaving invisible trails that radiated heat throughout their bodies.

Rose pulled away from him just enough to reposition herself, and she moved her hips down in one thrust, bringing him inside her. His hands went automatically to her waist as she moved against him, and he lifted his hips in response, thrusting deeper.

She moaned and he rolled her over onto her back, and her breath came in hot rasps against his neck. She dug her fingers into his back and he whispered her name against her throat as she bent her head back. His thrusts came harder as she lifted her hips to meet them, gripping onto both him and the mattress for support.

She gasped and he could feel her body tense. Her arms came up around his neck and he lifted her into his next thrust. Rose cried out, her whole body caught up in ecstasy, and in the next moment he'd joined her, her name escaping his lips as he gave himself over to release.

It took them a long time to catch their breath, and Rose rested her head on his chest, her hair tickling his skin. He smiled, his lips brushing the top of her head. They lay in silence for a while, neither of them sleeping, just resting, occasionally letting an idle hand wander over bare skin.

She lifted her head and looked at him, and he touched her face, smiling. She smiled back. "I guess this is a whole new beginning, isn't it?"

His lip twitched. "New new beginning?"

Rose snorted and smacked him gently. Then she sobered and bit her lip. "I really did miss you," she said. "I thought I'd never see you again. That hurt worse than any argument we could ever have."

He rolled onto his side so he could look at her easier. "I know," he said softly. "I'd already started to come back for you, and then…well, it's a long story, but a lot of things happened. And throughout everything, all I could think was how much I needed you with me."

"Must've been one hell of a bad day," she said, curling up against him and sighing.

He draped his arm over her and settled against her, his eyelids drifting lower. "Oh, Rose," he sighed, "you have no idea."

…………………………………………………………………………..

END


End file.
